Latest news from Cardiff City

By Carl Curtis

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I was going to report in this update about Inter Milan’s interest in Gary Medel but the news spread quickly this afternoon, initially the Italian giants made an offer to take Medel to the San Siro on loan and loan fee of £1.5m was offered as well as paying the World Cup star’s wages. The loan bid was rejected by the club yesterday.

The good thing is I am being told that the new ‘transfer committee’ which consists of Vincent Tan, Mehemt Dalman, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer and Kenny Choo will not accept any cut price deals for our players, they are willing to hold out for the value our club believe our players worth and will not sell off cheaply.

It is being reported that Medel is going to Inter for 10m Euros but I am told that we are getting £10m.

Again this morning I was told from within the club that only one more player is likely to be coming in on a permanent deal and Ole will be satisfied with squad he got. Obviously there are players we as fans expect to leave and the club are prepared for certain players to go too but only if a player who is part of Ole’s plans for next season is sold will there be further additions to the squad.

The club do plan on bringing in a loan player once other clubs decide who they will release for loans.

It is no secret that the position Ole wants another player for is centre half and Muhamed Besic was a target and City activated the £2.5m release clause in his contract but Sevilla came in with a £3m bid and City pulled out as they do not want to get into a bidding war, Vincent Tan from experiences with Victor Wanyama and Celtic last season will not allow the club to enter such bidding wars.

A day or so ago on here I wrote that Caulker was on £40k a week at Cardiff, I was wrong and he is currently on £35k but City tried to keep him by offering £40k a week to him.

QPR have had a bid accepted of £8m for the England International and they have offered Caulker £60k per week.

Crystal Palace also want Caulker and they are offering him £40k a week but are putting a package together which would see Caulker rewarded with a £2m bonus should Palace stay up next season.

Liverpool pulled the plug on a deal for Caulker as his agent was trying to get him £80k a week at Anfield and touted him to Everton as well looking for the same wages.

Fraizer Campbell is another player who seems to be heading out of CCS and he is currently earning £35k but Leicester cooled their interest when £60k a week was being asked for. Leicester have offered £40k the same as they pay Kasper Schemeichel.

Crystal Palace spoke with Campbell and his representatives over the weekend and are offering a lower wage than he is currently on but will pay a £1m bonus if they don’t get relegated.

Some of the figures above are staggering but I suppose that is what clubs like ours are paying players when they are in the Premier League, other players wages I am told are :

Gary Medel £35K, Kenwyne Jones £37.5k, Peter Whittingham £20k, Joe Mason £8k and Declan John £5k a week.

It seems that Jones won’t be around too much longer if the club can find another team will to pay the striker wages that he wants, City want him off the wage bill.

David Marshall signed a new four year contract earlier this year and improved his wage from £14k to £20k, Southampton are interested in signing the shot stopper but it would take a huge deal for our club to agree to sell, I was told yesterday that if Southampton want him then they will have to stump up £10m and Jose Fonte for City to allow Marshall to leave for St Mary’s.

Apparently the FAW have been asked to investigate on a transfer(s) for a player(s) City signed from Norway, I am not going to go into the details but am aware that the press are following it closely, the investigation doesn’t mean any wrongdoing by anyone working for the club I must stress.

The expansion on the Ninian Stand is expected to be completed in 10 days’ time on July 18th.

A meeting between supporters and Vincent Tan and Mehmet Dalman was confirmed to me this afternoon and the club plan to hold it around the time of the Huddersfield game, a director has confirmed the meeting is on the agenda but did warn me that Tan is staying strong on the identity and rebrand and it is unlikely there will be any change, but in my opinion a meeting needs to be held and concerns aired.

I was reminded that Tan was told by people within the club at the time of the rebrand that it would be accepted by the fans, and that when the red scarf day against Brighton took place Tan believed that the fans were happy.

One of the players that left Ole feeling ‘disappointed’ was Nicky Maynard, he returned to pre-season carrying a couple of pounds extra but will be given the opportunity to prove himself and get into shape. Maynard has had a difficult time with injury since joining the club so hopefully he can pull it together as I believe he will be an asset for us in the Championship.

After Dick Bate left his role as head of academy, the new head will be James McCarthy.

James has been part of our academy for 5 years and his father Paul has been involved with our club as a scout and a coach.

The youngsters in our set up have a lot of respect of James and look up to him.

I am told this is a good move and the academy will go forward under James.

There was no shareholders meeting this year,but Kenny Choo who is actually running the club daily as like a CEO would has asked for there to be one next year.

Mehmet Dalman works mostly from London and Choo reports daily to him.

Final Day http://www.cardiffcityforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=142434