Kenneth Perez believes Ittihad Club took Feyenoord's request for a bank guarantee as an insult, he said on Dit Was Het Weekend on ESPN. On Sunday, it looked as though Anis Hadj Moussa was heading for the Saudi club, but no deal was reached in the end, even though all the signs seemed positive.
The bank guarantee Feyenoord wanted never arrived, so the winger now appears set to stay at Feyenoord during this transfer window. "Ittihad experienced that as an insult, it seems to me," says Perez.
"If you ask a Saudi club, which is owned by the state, for a bank guarantee because otherwise you are afraid they cannot pay you, then they think: 'sorry, what?'", the Dane adds.
Milan van Dongen then explains when a bank guarantee is usually requested. "When there is doubt about whether a club might, for example, collapse or run into such strange financial problems that you doubt whether they can actually pay it."
Ajax previously did business with Ittihad Club over the transfer of Steven Bergwijn. Perez says the Rotterdam club could have checked with Ajax to find out whether the Saudi side are reliable when it comes to payments.
Big transfer fees are often paid in instalments. The roughly forty million euros for Hadj Moussa would not have been paid in one go either. "Of course, you only release the player's licence once you have received the first part. Then you could call other clubs and ask: 'hey, how reliable are they?"
"And if they then say everything is absolutely fine, you can still do business, can't you?" the former footballer argues. "But how much did Feyenoord really want this transfer then?" Kees Kwakman asks. "From a sporting perspective, I do understand that." Van Dongen and Perez then say they do not understand Feyenoord letting an offer of that size slip away.
"They have just let their striker (Ayase Ueda, ed.) go. Then from a sporting point of view I understand that you think: 'this one is quite painful. But that much money... You can hardly turn that down," Kwakman concludes.