Gurpreet Singh Sandhu – How the move to Boavista FC fell off

India number one Gurpreet Singh Sandhu joined Bengaluru FC on a one-year deal on August 16 from Norwegian club Stabaek FC. The Blues had to pay an undisclosed transfer fee in order to sign the player whose contract was due to expire in December this year.

After the rules and regulations for players was released by the Indian Super League (ISL) to the clubs in the last week of June, there was a clause of signing additional players, a minimum of two.

Also you could sign a player for the reserve squad and register him into the first team squad after the fifth game, something which Bengaluru FC and Chennaiyin FC would do in the case of Daniel Lalhimpuia and Anirudh Thapa.

At least four ISL clubs were quick to jump on the bandwagon and contacted Gurpreet for his prized signature. However, the former East Bengal goalkeeper expressed his desire to sign for a European club and only come on loan to an Indian team.

Not many clubs had the patience with the ISL draft on the horizon on July 23rd. On the other hand, Bengaluru FC began negotiations in the first week on July right after the announcements of Sunil Chhetri and Udanta Singh being retained.

Gurpreet’s representative was in touch with Portuguese club Boavista FC all throughout hoping that he could secure a deal with only six months left on the contract with Stabaek FC.

However, there were a few roadblocks. One was that the club had already signed a goalkeeper and now had three on their roster for the 2017-18 season.

The acting CEO of the club and another top official at Boavista were at loggerheads whether or not to make an offer for the Indian player especially with Stabaek asking for a higher transfer fee.

With time running out, Bengaluru FC’s Mandar Tamhane, who serves as the Chief Technical Officer (CTO), upped the ante and convinced his owners to pay a transfer fee in order to sign the player directly.

Tamhane spoke directly to Inge Andre Olsen, the sporting director at Stabaek, to discuss the transfer fee and successfully managed to lower the proposed amount.

The verbal agreement was in place on August 15th evening, the very same day three years ago Gurpreet had penned a contract with Stabaek FC.

The contractual obligations and International Transfer Certificate (ITC) was only secured just in time at around 11.30 pm IST on Wednesday.