DJ Deal Down To Leicester

Anyone else fed up of inflated transfer fees already?

We’ve been in the Premier League a matter of days, and are already being quoted wildly inflated prices left, right and centre. Still, that’s part and parcel of football’s top table I guess.

Perhaps we’d be doing the same as other clubs are doing, but it really sticks in the teeth that the likes of Leicester are now demanding four times as much for players than they wanted just a few short weeks ago.

Case in point: DJ Campbell. The Seasiders were quoted £250,000 for him last summer, but for a combination of reasons the deal did not go through. Now, after a second successful loan spell, the Seasiders wish to make his transfer permanent as they prepare for life in the Premier League, but Leicester are now demanding £1 million for the player – a fee that the Seasiders are refusing to pay.

‘Pool chairman Karl Oyston has been negotiating with the Foxes, but is rumoured to have told them that he is not prepared to go higher than £500,000 for the player and has appealed to Leicester’s common sense with the player not in their first team plans, on £20,000 a week and clearly wanting a move to the seaside. As of yet though, the Foxes haven’t budged, but Oyston is prepared to play a waiting game… for now.

Of course one option would be for DJ to pay up the remaining year of his contract himself, but for the time being the ball is firmly in Leicester’s court.

Indeed, ‘Pool assistant manager Steve Thompson admitted in yesterday’s Blackpool Gazette that ‘Obviously in an ideal world we would like DJ with us, but it is up to Leicester and DJ what they want to do now.’

This one could run and run…