Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has spoken for the first time about the failure to sign David de Gea from Manchester United, saying he can’t understand why the Red Devils took so long to submit the required paperwork and suggested the directors at the Premier League side lack experience.
The deal to take the goalkeeper to the Santiago Bernabeu looked all but done with the clubs agreeing a 30 million euro fee and Keylor Navas moving the opposite direction.
But shortly after the close of the transfer window, it emerged the paperwork had not arrived with the footballing authorities on time meaning the deal was not completed and de Gea would remain at Old Trafford.
The two clubs have sought to blame each other over the embarrassing handling of the situation, with both de Gea and Navas now reportedly both angry and unhappy at how the events unfolded.
Speaking to Cadena SER’s ‘El Larguero’, Perez sought to clarify the situation and apologise to Madridistas who had hoped to see de Gea between the sticks.
“We reached an agreement in a half hour, the contract were drawn up and sent by 13:30. It took Manchester United eight hours to return the contracts. They didn’t do it out of malice. They had a lot of work to do, but for something that only takes an hour, it took them eight,” he stated.
And he added: “Everything ended in a moment that we didn’t wish to make public. We still don’t understand many things that happened, but I’m not here to place blame on anyone. They lack experience in these matters, because it’s the exact same thing that happened last year with Coentrao and what happened with Ander Herrera and Athletic Bilbao.”
