New Sevilla signing Sergio Ramos was in fact close to going to Turkey, as was reported in the final days of the transfer market. Former Besiktas Vice-President Serhan Cetinsaya, who has since resigned, gave a press conference on the matter.
Ramos, 37, returned to Sevilla after the transfer window had closed, following a surprise call from Sporting Director Victor Orta. All summer long Sevilla had been publicly adamant they would not sign Ramos, but ended up drafting him in. It is thought that he will be earning a gross salary of around €2m per annum.
However Cetinsaya told Diario AS that he had much more lucrative offers elsewhere.
“We worked hard to close the transfer of Ramos. We had an agreement, but it didn’t happen. As a Besiktas fan, I would have loved to see it. We negotiated for 18 or 19 days. The money was secondary. Ramos received another offer of €27m net, but he did not even consider it.”
Real Madrid icon Guti, who shared a dressing room with Ramos, also had a part to play, explaining what it was like to play for Besiktas. Guti spent a season in Istanbul after leaving Real Madrid in 2010, before then retiring.
“Guti spoke to Ramos on our behalf. He was an exceptional reference. On Monday afternoon, August 21, we received the response ‘Congratulations to Besiktas’ for the transfer. Ramos gave us the green light. We even talked about bonuses to his agent. We prepared the contracts through our lawyers and sent them over. They invited us to their house in Madrid to carry out the remaining procedures and bring Ramos to Turkey. We discussed for a long time how much money we would pay if he had scored more than 25 goals. He asked for a large amount of money because he believed he would score 25 goals.”
Ramos is nothing if not ambitious with his forays forward, but that might have been a stretch even for him.
The detail in Cetinsaya’s retelling of events suggests that negotiations were certainly advanced.
“Six clubs competed for Sergio Ramos. Galatasaray were among them. When we started negotiating it was impossible for him to sign for a team that didn’t play in the Champions League, but we managed to convince him. Although Sergio Ramos wanted a 2-year contract, we agreed on a 1+1 contract. At the end of the first year, we were entitled to unilateral termination. We promised him €4m, €1m for the signature and €6m to be paid by a sponsor in exchange for the recording of an advertisement. Given there was a possibility of not finding a sponsor, the president had doubts about those €6m and we withdrew from the transfer due to the decision of our president.”
Ramos seemed genuinely moved by returning to Sevilla however, breaking down in tears while speaking about his grandfather. While some of the ultras are still yet to forgive him for past rivalry while he was at Real Madrid, 23,000 fans turned out to see Ramos, showing there is certainly a strong degree of support for the deal too.
