Silence is BF's best advice until all is settled. He is probably about to miss a match for which he may or may not be fit but which he is under contract to be available for if fit. He submitted the transfer request so in theory he could be liable for his wages and any consequential loss. Rangers may or may not have tapped him up- only Ferguson knows the truth. If they have, under UEFA Regulations (this isn't the namby pamby FA which is regulating the Ferguson saga), Rangers could be suspended from buying players for a period of time. Viola has a commercial relationship with Ferguson outside of football which is far easier to evidence in a Court of Law than convincingly portray a 27 year old multi-millionaire multi-propertyed couple as homesick. Again the UEFA rules governing cross-border transfers are far tougher than FA rules which is why so few of them get into difficulties. Viola might have infringed any number of rules under which he holds his license. Anything Fergie says publicly whilst these issues are implicitly or explicitly still open could have big unforeseen consequences. I doubt the conversations today and tomorrow will be as simple as Rovers declining Rangers' offer, Rangers saying no new bid, and Hughes telling Ferguson he can still play for Rovers. Equally, it will extremely surprising if any of what has happened will come before a Law Court or UEFA HQ but the damaged party (Rovers) will no doubt be resolving the matter on their own terms as far as they can being fully aware of the mayhem they could cause if they are dissatisfied..

Apparently Rovers' Board meeting started at 1pm today - according to Radio Lancashire. The meeting between Hughes, Ferguson and Viola will not happen today because Viola has got flu (either that or he and the family are "persuading" Murray to up his offer- only joking but it is true that Viola is a surname from Palermo). Perhaps not surprisingly, the official site are reporting that Ferguson is still struggling with his injury.

How do you know Ferguson did not know Murray could not afford to buy him? Ferguson has been loyal to the extent that other bidders for him have been rebuffed saying its Rovers or Rangers. There are enough rumours to indicate that one of the Premiership "big" clubs did come in. Murray has behaved extremely shoddily encouraging Ferguson to go out on a limb and knowing he could not compete in the transfer market at the level he needed to. Rovers could have walked away from Savage when it started getting rough and expensive. Rangers seem to have chickened out.

Well it is very quiet so either there are negotiations with Rangers because Murray has blown the cobwebs out of his pocket or there are negotiations with Viola to get the request withdrawn. I agree that there will be booing. I fear that it could be like Shearer- in his first game for the bar codes the reaction intially was very muted with only a few boos but after ten minutes the whole stadium had got the hang of it and the din was cacophonous every time Shearer got the ball. Blackburn Rovers supporters have quite rightly been regarded as a bunch of tits for their treatment of Shearer ever since. I wonder if we are going to look and sound like a bunch of dumb idiots tonight. The onus has to be on Barry to produce a performance as good as the one Wayne Routledge produced for Palace when he silenced the boo boys in the Spurs game.

Actually Scotty you are right- it massively re-enforces my point: Palace rejecting an offer of £2m for Routledge, contract expires 6/05 Rangers offering £3m (£440K cash) for Ferguson, contract expires 6/07 What planet is Murray on? The reaction on probably the most partisan Glasgow Rangers supporters' site. Note the lack of criticism of Blackburn Rovers.

If Ferguson wants a role model, he could do worse than look at Wayne Routledge. Very similar situation- Palace believe Routledge's Agent is behind the desire to move. Spurs have now made two bids, both rejected (the latest for £2m). And yet, Routledge played for Palace on Saturday... against Spurs. He was booed by the supporters until his all action performance won them round and Routledge ended up being one of the big reasons why Palace thrashed Spurs 3-0. Rangers should also note how Palace are pushing the price skywards. There will be a price at which Spurs will get the man- Palace's price.

These are Mark Hughes' comments taken from today's Daily Telegraph: "Barry is back in training, so it's up to me to make a decision on whether he plays against Bolton. I'll have a chat with Barry, but he's obviously available for selection. "The board know that I want Barry to stay at the club, but they won't make a decision on his transfer request until they meet before the game. It needs to be discussed, but it's very difficult to know which way they'll go. "All I know is that the level at which Rangers have bid for Barry, it is simply not realistic to sell him." The article says that the Rovers Board are scheduled to meet this evening immediately prior to the Bolton game. The report suggests that Ferguson will receive a written reply to his transfer request after that Board Meeting.

The Daily Telegraph are running a story that Ferguson's transfer request will be formally rejected by Rovers today. Hard to see that Rovers had any other choice in the matter. Tris, you are absolutely right about the Todd/Ferguson comparisson. Even though I was against Souness, I felt that what Todd did was unforgivable. I have voted for Savage to be given the armband. Ferguson in contrast, whilst acting against the interests of the club of which he is captain, cannot be accused of behaving in a particularly disgraceful or unprofessional manner in the way he has gone about it. How he behaves now if the refusal of the request is fact will be the most important factor in whether he is rehabilitated by the club and fans. With Ferguson having behaved professionally thus far, he and Viola have a tough call on whether to throw their toys out of the pram or to continue being a professional. I suspect Viola dare not advise his client to misbehave because of the risk the Rovers might strike back at him personally. I am sure Brum have given Rovers a master class in how to play the game if this turns dirty (and I am talking about the things which will have gone on which were not made public)! Rovers need to have an absolutely firm and clear position without leaving any room for doubt about what is going to happen by 31 January. I suspect that is not going to be difficult as Rangers' poverty and parsimony will mean that Rovers have not been "challenged" by any sort of bid worthy of the name.

In that case you will have seen the quotes appear twice on page 38- once on Soccernet and once on Teamtalk. I am not saying you are forcing any views but look at the end of your link. "(c )hannel=Scotland" is the give away of what version you are looking at!

Dado Prso, that is actually an extremely short abstract from what Hughes said presumably edited for the benefit of the Scottish audience. He went on in the same interview to say: "It is very difficult for myself and the board to really understand which way this is going to go. "Rangers have not come in with anything like a realistic bid and it is very difficult to say which way we can go with it. "We will be speaking to Barry and his representatives on Monday and maybe then we will have a clearer picture." Ferguson has also handed in a transfer request but Hughes denied it was exactly the same situation as had existed with Savage. He said: "The difference is the level we wanted Robbie at. We made Birmingham a significant increase on their investment and Rangers have not on ours and unless they do he will remain our player."

Well, I would imagine we will all be a lot wiser tomorrow- If Rangers make a "challenging" bid If another club comes in with a "challenging" bid complicating the whole matter by significantly outbidding Rangers If Barry accepts Rangers are unable or unwilling to afford him and makes his peace with Rovers If Barry refuses to play or join the squad (that for me is the litmus test) The Rovers senior management are extremely careful about their public statements and I cannot recollect them ever being proved to be flatly wrong by subsequent events or outcomes. Therefore Rangers have a huge task to shift Rovers from setting a price which gives a return on Rovers' investment in Ferguson or bringing the £2.1m outstanding into the negotiation.- Rovers have stated they have a contract to pay that amount in August and will honour it so it should be ignored in any transfer discussion.

The Rovers still hold the cards- Ferguson's contract. Sounds like Rangers are giving up if all they can do is argue about what Ferguson may or may not want to do. Obviously Hughes is vastly superior to McLeish.

In other words, Rovers have paid £4.4m cash and owe £2.1m. Therefore what dado prso is really saying is that Rangers should repay £4.4m cash now and cancel the £2.1m owing. Then the Rovers will start negotiating their profit on top....

No but every club which holds a long term contract on a player who asks to make a move makes a profit on the deal. Apart from anything else, it buys the Agent out of disconduct charges and the buying club from tapping up charges. If the selling club is making a loss, they can turn elsewhere to the guilty parties to make up their loss. Any price from Rangers of less than £6.5m is a total dream. Forget it. The reason I mentioned wages etc. is that in legal and commercial terms (forget football and let's talk the commercial and legal reality of the real world) these could be included as part of Rovers' investment. Note that Hughes said, Rovers would look for a return on their investment. Not just a profit on the transfer fee.

As a non-UK URL, you cannot access The Times web site without paying a small fortune. None of us outside the UK can read it.

Prso's formula is £2m plus £2.1m debt forgiveness. Can he give Blackburn Rovers one good reason why they should take a £2.4m loss on transfer fees, a £2m hit in wages and probably a several hundred thousand pounds hit in medical expenses so that Viola and the Fergusons can run their property business together more conveniently? As for attacking Viola, if you have any more dirt you can dish on him, please contribute to the John Viola thread on this MB.

A pretty comprehensive piece charting the decline of Rangers and the hard fact, not appreciated by the Gers posting on here, that the days of austerity are definitely not over. Amongst the many rumours circulating is one that Everton have tapped up Ricksen and that Gers are unable to match the £25K per week the Toffees are willing to pay him. Ricksen must be thoroughly unhappy with the openly canvassed £30,000 a week five year contract apparently awaiting Ferguson if he goes back home- not that it is much more (if any) than he is already getting at Rovers. Put it into perspective: The Greek centre half Rangers signed this week is joining on £14K a week. Rovers' accounts for 2002/3 would suggest some £30m was spent on wages for the first team squad. For that to be true, the AVERAGE wage of the 25-man Rovers' squad was £23K a week. Meantime McLeish was talking yesterday about the Ferguson situation: “We haven’t heard from Blackburn or from any other sources about what the outcome may be,” said McLeish. “If nothing is done [in the current window] we would need to see whether we felt it was futile to try again for him in the summer or whether a deal could be resurrected.” Hardly the words of a Manager who is confident his Chairman will back him financially to secure his number one transfer target! Deep down, Murray knows Rangers cannot compete and he probably greatly regrets this Ferguson saga ever started.

Well, its there now. I controlled myself because we don't want any trouble for the site. Robbie Savage had this to say last week: "Birmingham hold all the cards. I'm their player. Unless Blackburn come in with more money, that's the end of it. "Equally, everyone has a price and if Blackburn come up with more money, then I suppose I'll be gone." That is exactly the situation with Ferguson, Rovers and Rangers now. I cannot access the Times web site but apparently they had a quote from Ferguson today indicating something similar.

This is a link with quotes from the 7th JANUARY!!! "Blackburn Rovers have blasted speculation linking Barry Ferguson with a return to Rangers, while his agent also insisted the Scotland international is going nowhere." I will own up, yes I am upset about this thing and probably a touch obsessed. I am going to open a new thread within the next hour on the stuff I have just found. It's not very nice.

Even Broxibears have got the message. They assume Barry is going "hame" but they also recognise that Rangers are going to have to pay the Rovers in full for him. Murray is on the horns of a dilemma- he is the victim of a jumbo heist. What started out as loose talk in the euphoria of the semi-refinancing of Rangers debt "we'll be able to bring Barry home" has become a monster. McLeish latched onto the wildly popular idea of signing Ferguson in an attempt to save his own job and Viola spotted a quick killing and a chance to rescue his badly tarnished reputation after the vicious words from Aberdeen and Hibs. The whole thing gathered momentum rather than having any master plan as rumours escalated into speculation. Then JW took charge by calling Viola and Ferguson in for a chat at a time he and not they wanted and Murray made a half-hearted pathetic offer couched around with complete inaccuracies topped off with calling on the player to find his own way out of Ewood. In went the transfer request a week later and now even Ranger's own supporters are telling Murray to cough up Blackburn's price- not what Murray had in mind at all especially as all the indications are he wasn't that fussed about Ferguson going back in the first place!

Scotty, it's not a good situation- I'm not pretending otherwise. But equally, I think your assertions are ludicrous. Tell me. I don't know what you do but aren't there other companies in your industry you would fancy working for or other locations you would like to work in? Have you ever been for a job interview whilst still working for another company? If you have, does that make you incapable of working for your existing employer? Sure you get excited at the prospect of moving, get low when it doesn't happen; but you realise you are happy where you are and get on with it. There will be very few people looking at this who will not recognise themselves in those situations. Doesn't mean they are doing a lousy job where they are employed does it? Of course every footballler would play at Stamford Bridge given the chance but they cannot so get on with doing a thoroughly professional job where they are. If your existing employer knows you would prefer to be somewhere else but are basically happy where you are, what does a good and caring employer do? I would suggest he tries to facilitate a transfer making sure no harm is done to his own business but if that is not possible, the employer will sit down and work with you to ensure your motivation and that the disappointment doesn't cloud the fact that you are already happy where you are. That was exactly what Mark Hughes did yesterday- he opened the door for Barry to go to Ibrox so long as Rovers were not damaged financially. I know it is different in the hot house goldfish bowl of football but only by degree. A different analogy. Company A buys Company B for £6.5m and the Directors of Company B sign a four year service contract with Company A. Eighteen months into the Agreement, an Investment Bank comes to the Directors of Company B with a proposal for a Management Buy-Out of Company B and together they table a proposition to buy out for £3m to Company A. Company A is quite happy with the acquisition- its not hitting the top end of forecasts but it is one of the better performing divisions. It is pretty ###### off with what has happened and declines politely and firmly. It indicates it wants a profit from its investment which would suggest an £8m buy-out price, otherwise the matter should be closed. If the Investment Bank and the Company B Directors then persist but now pursue their scheme using non-cooperation to the extent that £3.5m of value is destroyed, then I can promise you, m'learned friends would be briefed, injunctions issued and they'd be seeing each other in the High Court. Football is a different world but not THAT different. My reading of the situation is that in their childish, yah boo (football) way, Brum showed what a football club can do when its best asset decides to hand in a transfer request whilst under a long term contract. The statement by Gordon Taylor that footballers do not have all the power in these contractual situations and that the contract enabled Birmingham to make a substantial gain had two intents: - PR to diffuse any backlash against footballers and the PFA, AND - a clear warning to his members who are on long term contracts that if they put in transfer requests, they can ONLY expect to move if the selling club makes a PROFIT. And by implication, don't expect much more than sympathy from the PFA if it doesn't work out for them if the selling club doesn't make a profit and as a result takes whatever action it deems fit. 1864 Roverite's post at 18.22 yesterday on page 37 sums up the situation exactly as it is. BRFC holds the whole stack of cards. The analogy is perfect- you can have a great hand in the crap game, but you still have to play the hand with skill to win. I'm simply pointing out that Rovers are playing their hand with great skill and to the extent anyone from Rovers read this thread, they need to understand there are supporters out there who: - understand and appreciate that - will be very angry if we loose out financially when we don't need to - will be very happy to welcome Back and be very supportive of Barry Ferguson in the blue and white halved shirt when the club has resolved this mess.

Actually Ranger Rover, I had forgotten about Hendry. Yet another example where the selling club extracted a huge price from the purchaser for a player they did not want to sell but the player wanted to go. As I have previously pointed out, there are parrallel markets depending on the length of contract left. Measured against £8m for Boumsong, £7m for Distan, sure Barry is worth £8.5m. That's the market he is in and saying he is worth no more than £4m is empty- it doesn't buy anything except perhaps a lawsuit from Blackburn Rovers against the player and agent to recover the value they have destroyed. This transfer is particularly odd as the player has by all accounts prevented an open auction in which the Rovers could get highest price. The newspaper cutting quoting David Moyes saying that he would have bid for Barry had the player not said he would only leave Rovers for Rangers is no doubt sitting in an appropriate file. The key difference with Savage and Everton is that Savage rebuffed Everton after Rovers and Brum had agreed a deal and after Brum had made a fat profit on him. There has been no public movement on this matter today so my odds now swing heavilly towards Rangers failing. I am sure the journos are tracking the key people so there are unlikely to be secret meetings happening. One poster on this thread showed how Rangers had already spent the Boumsong money so Murray is clearly going to get nowhere near the Rovers' requirement unless he is willing to lend more personally to Rangers. The only question left on this issue now is how an elegant solution can be engineered for Ferguson to carry on playing with the Rovers.

Teamtalk saying the same thing Meanwhilst the Scots dream on... However, it is interesting to see that the majority of that report is given over to what Blackburn Rovers have to say about it all. Hitherto, the Scottish press were treating this putative transfer as purely a matter of when David Murray applied the coup de grace. It still is if he offers £8m

This is part of the other half of the Soccernet article which appeared about ten minutes ago: "Rangers have already had one £3million offer rejected and Blackburn, who still owe £2.5million from the original £6.5million fee from the Glasgow club, insist they will hold out for much more. "Hughes said: 'It is very difficult for myself and the board to really understand which way this is going to go. " 'Rangers have not come in with anything like a realistic bid and it is very difficult to say which way we can go with it. " 'We will be speaking to Barry and his representatives on Monday and maybe then we will have a clearer picture.' "Ferguson has also handed in a transfer request but Hughes denied it was exactly the same situation as had existed with Savage. "He said: 'The difference is the level we wanted Robbie at. We made Birmingham a significant increase on their investment and Rangers have not on ours and unless they do he will remain our player.' " This is significant in that having effectively called the bluffs of Rangers, Viola and Ferguson, it is the FIRST time Rovers have talked about a transfer fee- A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE OVER OUR INVESTMENT. Of course investment can be interpreted as including wages, expenses and medical fees plus the experience of playing in the Prem So it is put up or shut up for Rangers. They said they wanted it resolved a week before the transfer window closes- here is the chance. Clearly Rovers will be sitting down with Ferguson on Monday either with an acceptable offer from Rangers in hand (highly unlikely) or on the basis of Rangers having failed to follow through and therefore getting him to withdraw his request without the club ever having to refuse his request. If Rangers play games, it is Mark Hughes talking, with JW, the Board and the Walker Trustees all held in reserve. Beginning to look like we might see the Savage/Ferguson partnership make its debut on Monday evening. Which two from Emerton, Thompson and MGP will be with them?