Feyenoord lash Premier League after Chelsea land 15-year-old prospect
Posted Wednesday, December 22, 2010 by theguardian.com
Leo Beenhakker says 'the Premier League clubs are spoiling the market with their behaviour.'
Chelsea are at the centre of another international transfer controversy after luring the highly rated teenager Nathan Ake from the Dutch club Feyenoord.
The Londoners are understood to have come to an agreement, thought to be worth around £230,000, with the Rotterdam club over the transfer of the 15-year-old, who has also attracted the attention of Manchester City. The boy is expected to sign a professional contract at Stamford Bridge when he turns 16, in February.
Without naming Chelsea specifically, Feyenoord's sporting director, Leo Beenhakker, expressed his dismay at how Premier League clubs are, in his view, taking young players from their clubs before their 16th birthdays.
"It's driving me crazy that hot prospects are walking away from us like this," Beenhakker said. "The Premier League clubs spoil the market with their behaviour. Other clubs in Europe aren't doing this kind of things, but the English sides just don't care.
"It's obviously bad news for Feyenoord. We can't do anything about it if a foreign club comes up to sign one of our youngsters."
A Chelsea spokesman claimed the club had been closely working with Feyenoord throughout negotiations and said everything was above board. "We have kept Feyenoord abreast of our interest and as such we have reached an agreement with them," he added.
Ake joins a long list of young overseas players who have been lured to Chelsea, among them Patrick van Aanholt, Jeffrey Bruma, Fabio Borini, Jacopo Sala and Gaël Kakuta, whose signing in 2007 resulted in a transfer ban – since overturned – after his previous club, Lens, reported the Londoners for "tapping up" the player.
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