Kia Joorabchian

Carlos had already been back in Argentina.

I don't know where you are, but I'd really like you to stay and I want you to come back to United.

But the option had already expired at that moment in time.

And Carlos was already looking at other options because he was quite disappointed that during the two seasons, Sir Alex hadn't signed him.

So at some point in time, Sir Alex actually changed his mind in wanting to keep Carlos because he realized that Carlos, he was about to lose him.

Maybe during the period of time, they felt that because they had the option and they had a chance to just sign a paper and send it to the Premier League and sign Carlos for four years, they didn't believe that they had any urgency to do so.

And maybe after the urgency had finished, they realized that they were about to lose him and that was too late.

But I don't think, you know, you're talking about professionalism and down tooling.

It has anything to do with that.

Well, I think the point that you're transferring to is about what the financial economic rights of the player occurred after Man United had not triggered the option.

And I think the most thing that you have to realize is that a lot of players, when their contracts run down and go for free, they obviously demand more at that moment in time than they do when someone has to pay $100 million for them or $80 million for them.

The point was that, of course, Manchester City were going to pay more than Man United, and so was at that moment in time Real Madrid, and so was at that moment in time Barcelona, who had both made official offers for Carlos once his option had expired and the word had got out that the option has expired.

But...

Carlos' decision was that he was quite taken back by Manchester City's, at that moment, approach because Manchester City had come in with a lot of love for him and he had felt that maybe towards the end of the contract in May he wanted to stay at United and

United hadn't exercised that option.

And so it was time for him to move on because maybe Berbatov was the new darling of the club.

But I don't think that the financial issue had anything to do because Carlos was not going to make any financial gain by signing for Man United or for Manchester City or for Real Madrid.

As you know, transfer fees stay with the clubs.

The clubs and the ownerships of those keep the transfer fees.

If today a player is sold out of Man United, he doesn't benefit