I thought it worked like this ...
The buying club asks to speak to the player ... they establish whether or not the player would be up for joining the buying club ... f the answer is yes the buying club offers the selling club money in the form of a bid and the 2 clubs haggle.
If we have already put a bid on that basis why would the lack of CL football come out now? Surely that would have been established whilst talking to the player initially.
Take the Yaya situation. As far as I can gather, we have agreed terms with him and now it's down to Barca and City to reach an agreement over the transfer fee.
You don't ask a woman's father for his blessing without having a pretty damn good idea the woman wants to marry you in the first place.
This Silva stuff is very unpredictable and confusing if you ask me?