Di Stefano left chasing shadows on deadline day

Published on Wednesday 3 September 2003 01:00

DID you hear the one about the Scottish club who tried to sign a fat old Geordie and he refused to come?

So went the greeting on the mobile phone yesterday morning from a Newcastle United supporter who, although domiciled in London, had already managed to hear the news that Dundee’s attempt to sign Paul Gascoigne as a player/coach had failed in unceremonious fashion. Gazza informed the Scottish club he preferred to continue winding down his career in Saudi Arabia rather than invest it with the reasonable significance of UEFA Cup involvement.

As kiss-offs go, it amounted to being chucked in the dining hall by the ugliest girl at school. And then having news of the dumping posted on the noticeboard.

This wasn’t even Dundee’s first attempt to woo the diminished former England international - Gascoigne turned the club down last season in favour of an ill-fated move to some remote corner of China - but you must hope it is now Dundee’s last should they not wish to be embarrassed further. Or at least you wish for the implementation of dignified silence from Dundee director Giovanni di Stefano, who instead of seeking to keep face volunteered news of his club’s failures on deadline day in a long piece posted on the Dundee official website.

Revealed therein was a fresh approach made by Dundee to Gascoigne, but it was a case of "thanks but no thanks" from the man who is apparently now signed to an Abu Dhabi outfit going by the name of Al Jazira.

"After some thought and proper consideration Mr Gascoigne preferred Al Jazira Football Club," reports Di Stefano, with manager Jim Duffy, one assumes, cringing somewhere in the background.

Also fleshed out in minute detail were the bones of attempts to bring Georgi Kinkladze and Deportivo La Coruna’s Djalminha to Dens, while Di Stefano also revealed Duffy had been effectively left at the altar by one Atletico Madrid player, believed to be the former Ajax star Dani. The manager, Di Stefano reports, "also negotiated with a top player from Atletico De Madrid and was actually at Edinburgh Airport after all matters had apparently been completed [but] that player failed to turn up." The director then bemoans "the hundred excuses from both the agent and Atletico Madrid" which meant the deal "came to nothing".

The gently mocking tone of the southern text pest in the first paragraph emphasises the risk one is taking when exposing the inner workings of a football club in the run-up to deadline day. If one wishes to avoid ridicule the best policy is not always honesty.

Revealing Gascoigne would rather stay in the becalmed football (back)waters of Saudi Arabia than depart for Dundee hardly sprays positive vibes across a club about to embark on a critical six-week period, with a UEFA Cup double- header against Perugia far from the team’s only tests in a schedule which also includes clashes with Celtic, Rangers and Hearts.

Although Duffy has made tentative comments revealing his gratitude to Di Stefano - he praised Dundee’s new boardroom incumbent for assenting to releasing funds for these still-born moves - you imagine the manager will not thank him for revealing with such candour the minutiae of the clubs’s transfer frustrations.

As ever with Di Stefano his revelations were colourful stuff, and made interesting reading for those Dundee fans who logged onto the club’s official website, dundeefc.co.uk, on Monday night. "Bravo, bravo," wrote one visitor, delighted by Di Stefano’s open-door policy. "It is refreshing for a director of a football club to speak directly to the fans and give us all the inside info. I don’t know of any other Scottish fans who are so lucky."

Of course, counters the cynic, this cascade of disclosures might be one ploy used by the lawyer to seek to conceal the inescapable and ultimate truth - the Dens Park club have been left empty-handed after a weekend of high hopes, and this after Di Stefano’s elated rattle about big-name signings arriving as if onto Noah’s ark - two by two.

This is the story, taken up by Di Stefano, after Georgi Kinladze had turned down the Dens men in favour of the English Premiership and a renewed bid of 1million for James McFadden had likewise foundered. "We then negotiated for a Brazilian player from Deportivo La Coruna," Di Stefano continues. "I received a telephone call on Friday in Monte Carlo asking whether I was willing to pay 1.1 million per annum for the salary. Without even completing my drink I approved such and stated even if it was more it would be OK."

This wheeling and dealing calls to mind the unedifying excesses of City-types in the Eighties, when style rather than substance became the watch-word. It is far removed from the days when former Dundee manager Simon Stainrod bid a set of tracksuits for Lochore Welfare’s Garry Paterson (but at least he got him).

These are wildly different times, that much is clear. But these are also, according to Di Stefano, unscrupulous times.

"I am angry at the manner upon which in the world of football men can sign binding contracts and then simply change their minds," he concludes, appearing to charge some unnamed players with reneging on transfers having actually put pen to paper.

As a barrister he might be better advised to seek recourse in the law rather than exoneration in the headlines.