De Gea will stay at Old Trafford because of Real Madrid’s blunder, says United

Manchester United has denied having sought contact from Real Madrid for the sale of goalkeeper David de Gea.

In a statement, the club said De Gea was a key member of the squad and the club’s preference was not to sell.

“No offer was received for David until yesterday (Tuesday, 1 September). At lunchtime, Real Madrid made its first offer to buy David. A deal was agreed between the clubs, which included Navas being transferred to Old Trafford. The deals were dependent on each other.”

But the English club said that problems with the players’ documentation had staunched the deal.

“In the last several hours of the process, with Navas at the Real Madrid training ground, Real Madrid were controlling the documentation processes of David, Navas and Real Madrid. Manchester United was in control only of the documentation of Manchester United.
“Manchester United sent transfer documents for both players to Real Madrid at 20:42 BST. David’s documentation was returned by Real Madrid to Manchester United without the signatory page at 22:32 BST.”

The club said that at 22:40 BST, minutes before the deadline, major changes to the documentation came through to Manchester United which immediately put the deals at risk.

“Only at 22:55 BST were the documents that are needed to cancel David’s contract received by Manchester United from Real Madrid. At this point Navas’ documentation was still not returned by Real Madrid.

“At 22:58 BST, the transfer agreement was sent back by Manchester United, uploaded onto [FIFA’s transfer market system] TMS and accepted – all before the deadline.”

The club said that the deals couldn’t happen because Real Madrid didn’t upload De Gea’s documents onto TMS in time, while United said it had. “Real Madrid didn’t upload David’s documents to the Spanish league in time, per reports it seems some 28 minutes after the deadline.
“The fact that Manchester United filed the papers on time was acknowledged by the Football Association, who offered to support that claim in any discussions with FIFA. The club offered this assistance, as well as its own time-stamped documents to Real Madrid but they have chosen not to go down this route.”