Ugo: Cash windfall looking more likely?

31 May 2000

In what seems to be the annual news story, speculation is rife about Ugo Ehiogu leaving Villa for a team that will give him a better chance for selection for England. Disappointed that Villa lost a chance to play in Europe by losing the FA Cup Final to Chelsea, Ehiogu made one of his regular outbursts about having no prospects for International action unless he moved to another club. Villa, of course, would have to give Albion 50% of any profit they made over £200,000 on the sale of Ehiogu to another club, thanks to the tribunal ruling made nine years ago when they poached him from us. With rumours of his value being somewhere around the £6 million mark, this could prove extremely beneficial for Albion - who have quite rightly resisted offers from Villa in the past to buy out the clause for a poxy 250,000 or so - but Ehiogu sort of suggested that it was Albion who were preventing him from being sold by Villa by refusing to come to an arrangement! In any case, he has stated that he won't sign a new contract in two years time when his current one runs out, in which case Villa will lose him for nothing under the Bosman ruling - which certainly puts pressure on them to find a purchaser soon.

Ugo's comments, however, overlook a couple of rather serious points. First, as John Gregory pointed out - in the terse kind of way which suggests he's as fed up with hearing the stories again as we are - that there wasn't much that Villa could do about agreeing to a sale until they received some sort of offer, which so far they hadn't. Given that agents seem to be quite happy to go about offering players to all and sundry, with or without their current team's approval (see the Lee Hughes story above), it would seem that if no interest has been shown in him yet then it might not come at all. Secondly, playing for Villa doesn't seem to have done Gareth Southgate or, now, Gareth Barry any harm when it comes to International call-ups...

We wait eagerly for developments. Or, maybe, not.

Previous Stories:

  20 May 2000:  Cat Deely tricked by Evil Ant and Cruel Dec

  12 May 2000:  No chance of move for Clement

  09 May 2000:  The axe has fallen!

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