LAST NIGHT I heard two stories.
One is that Ashley Cole's buy-out clause says he can go to any club for £16 million, except Chelsea.
Very few clubs can pay £16 million for a left back because a left back does not win you games or put bums on seats.
Does Capello want to pay £16 million for a left back ?
Therefore Cole will start the season as an Arsenal player and Chelsea might leave their bid till August 31st and then offer £25 million.
Clearly, Arsenal do not want to sell Cole to Chelsea because he met Mourinho and Kenyon.We are 99% sure that the first contact was instigated by Cole, not by his agent.
Kenyon and Mourinho met Cole without Arsenal's knowledge and both knew they were breaking the regulations.
THE OTHER STORY was that there is a verbal buy-out clause.
A £16 million buy-out clause was discusssed but never agreed. So that paragraph was NOT included in the one-year contract extension Cole signed in 2005.
Which version do I believe?
Well, after all the bad publicity, and the investigation, and the fines on Cole, Mourinho and Chelsea, it didn't look as if Cole would go to SW5.
Chelsea said they didn't want him and they signed Del Horno, who then failed and was sold back to Spain.
At the time Cole's new Arsenal contract was drawn up, it looked as if he would join Real Madrid a year later, not Chelsea, so a £16 million buy-out clause was sensible.
And if that clause excluded Chelsea it was only to protect Arsenal from a move that seemed very unlikely at that time.
A year ago Ashley Cole thought he was a glamorous footballer who would join a glamorous club this summer. His extension was always a compromise, an agreement to stay another year and no longer.
But it has become a bore.Worse than that, it's become a squalid, nasty bore.
For a long time now people have been asking : How long will this Ashley Cole saga last ?
We were in Somerset on Monday and Tuesday and I didn't see TV or newspapers for those two days but on Tuesday night we stopped on the M4 at Reading Services and I bought a newspaper.
The Guardian was sold out so I got The Times and the back page headline was PRICE OF COLE HAS RISEN TO £25m, ARSENAL TELL MOURINHO.
And I thought : How long is this transfer gonna take? Sort it out ! When does he get back from his honeymoon ?
UPDATE : Friday 1.30 pm :
I'm reliably informed that there are NO BUY-OUT CLAUSES in the contracts of Cole, Henry, Arsene, or any other employee of AFC.
So that's now crystal clear ! Sorry it took so long !
Have a good weekend !