City make final £35m bid for Terry: England skipper offered £200,000-a-week
By Bob Cass and Joe Bernstein Last updated at 10:00 PM on 04th July 2009
Manchester City will make one last effort to prise England captain John Terry from Chelsea with a £35million bid and wages of £200,000 per week.
But Terry will be told by new Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti that he must put in a formal transfer request if he wants to leave Stamford Bridge.
City are refusing to be put off by Chelsea's insistence that Terry is not for sale and believe a transfer fee of £35m, plus an astronomical wage offer - albeit lower than the reported £300,000-per-week - could be enough to seal the summer's most sensational transfer.
Chelsea took the unusual step last week of admitting they had rejected a second bid for Terry after an approach in January. Chelsea are either afraid the money will turn the head of their 28-year-old captain or believe he is using City's interest as leverage to secure a new deal for himself.
Ancelotti, who will be officially unveiled as manager tomorrow, will put the ball firmly in Terry's court. The England captain, who currently earns about £140,000 a week in his current deal which runs until 2012, has yet to reaffirm his commitment to Chelsea.
The Terry camp appear to be encouraging the view he could leave Stamford Bridge for the new team of stars being assembled by City boss Mark Hughes and their billionaire owners from Abu Dhabi, who are preparing a quickfire £200m spree on transfer fees and wages unprecedented in English football.
Carlos Tevez will complete a £25.5m transfer in the next 72 hours after his loan at rivals Manchester United expired, with estimates of his new wages reaching £200,000 per week.
There are rumours that Chelsea might yet hijack the bid for Tevez, but City are strong favourites to tie up the deal. City also believe they can persuade Samuel Eto'o to leave Barcelona, with an offer of £160,000 per week - equal to the package enjoyed by Robinho. The Cameroon striker's stalling tactics have so far failed to flush out an alternative bidder, such as Inter Milan.
If Chelsea stand firm or Terry turns down City's riches, the Eastlands club will test the resolve of Everton to hold on to Joleon Lescott for £20m. The England defender already lives in Manchester and is keen to treble his current £35,000-a-week wages.
The proposed deals, in particular the audacious move for Terry, speak volumes for the ambition of City's Arab owners. And nowhere has the impact of Sheik Mansour's petrodollars been felt more than across the city at Old Trafford.
While City were flexing their financial muscles, United boss Sir Alex Ferguson turned to free transfer Michael Owen to try to plug the gaping hole left in his attack by the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Tevez.
City's money-no-object approach means they can pay enough to attract overseas players who would otherwise be put off coming to England by the UK tax system - or whose wage demands, usually in euros, now cost more to meet because of the decline in value of the pound. In contrast, United and every other English club are having to come to terms with the new financial reality in European football. Ferguson has missed out on Kaka and Karim Benzema because of a combination of the transfer fees demanded and the cost of paying the wages they command.
The signing of Owen suggests Ferguson may also have given up hope of winning the race for another target, Atletico Madrid's Sergio Aguero.
United's priority could now be a defensive midfielder to replace injury ravaged Owen Hargreaves. Yaya Toure may be tempted from Barcelona if the Catalans succeed in signing Liverpool's Javier Mascherano.
