Dennis Wise ensures Toon miss out on Milner money.

Posted on May 21st, 2010 | 88 Comments |

Muppet!
Muppet!
Dennis Wise is not remembered with great affection around Newcastle after his part in the fiasco which brought the club to it’s knees, and ultimately cost us a Premier League place.

And it looks like the smooth negotiator has dropped another clanger that will see the club miss out on any extra income from any potential transfer of James Milner to Manchester City.

Why only yesterday I thought that the club must surely have entered some form of sell-on clause in the deal that took the then 22-year old player to Aston Villa. It’s what anyone would do right?

Surely a player of such a young age will move on again at some point in his career? Well that does now indeed look like it could be a possibility, but Newcastle willl not benefit from it as Dennis Wise didn’t insert a sell-on clause into the deal whilst in negotiations with Aston Villa. It appears that Villa wanted to pay £8 million for Milner, and Wise wanted £12 million. Villa said fine to that but took any sell-on clause out of the deal, which Wise accepted. Superb negotiation skills from Wise, and it makes you wonder how he was qualified to be put in such an important position within the club, despite the controversy it ended up causing.

Don’t forget, this is the man who brought us Xisco and negotiated a huge fee and salary for the player. He also brought Nacho Gonzalez to the club as a favour to an agent from South America apparently, this is aswell as scouting players on YouTube. When you look back on all this it makes the Newcastle United of today look like it’s running like a well oiled machine in comparison. Absolutely shocking.

Make no mistake, the reputation of Dennis Wise is in tatters, and he will probably struggle to get any meaningful job in football for some time. In fact he has admitted himself that his career has been destroyed by the whole scenario that unfolded in his tenure at St James’ Park, and the subsequent fall out from it.

Don’t get me wrong, Wise did do some positive things during his time with us, signing the likes of Haris Vuckic and Nile Ranger for example. But the negatives far outweigh the positives when you reflect back at his record on Tyneside, and with this latest revelation it appears that our club is still feeling the effects of apponting him in the first place.

Anyway, enough of me waffling. The late great Sir Bobby Robson sums Dennis Wise up far better than I ever could, so I will leave him to have the last word:

“My biggest disappointment was Dennis Wise, a director of football who was hardly seen at the ground, and who brought in players who were neither suitable, nor right, for Newcastle United. I forgive most people, but I am not sure I can forgive Wise for what he did to my club.”

NUFCBlog Author: toonsy toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.

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Comment on this post

88 Responses

  1. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and there was no way of knowing Milner would impress so much. It would have been nice to squeak a few more mill out of it but what is the standard percentage you get for a sell on anyway as I am not sure?

    BUT If we took 8 mill and 20% sell and Man C pay 25 mill for him that would be a 17 mill profit for Villa. Unless the sell on is roughly 23% we would not have made the extra 4 mill we got for him and I cant imagine the sell on % is much more than that so we have certainly not missed out on much if anything.

    Whilst his reputation is in tatters i think him selling Milner in the first place was more of a contributing factor.

  2. Sorry Charlie, but I have to disagree. Anyone who knows a good young player could see that Milner was going to be a VERY impressive player.

    If this story is true (I haven’t seen it anywhere else) then this once again wise and his poor decision making has come back to haunt us.

  3. This speculation derives presumably from the Mirror story today. It is indeed bad news that the incompetent Wise didn’t insist on a sell-on clause for James Milner. But if we assume (for just one second) that this story is true then maybe, just maybe, the second part is true too –the bit about NUFC being due four million quid this summer as the final payment of the 12 million fee Wise got. Maybe a silver lining yet…

  4. I have to agree with Charlie. If these are indeed the facts of the deal (which I very much doubt) the sell on fee would never match the extra £4 million, so therefore it was good business surely?! I hate Wise as much as the next Newcastle fan but surely we can’t keep blaming him for everything that ever went wrong with the club, that would be a little naive on our part.

  5. I agree with Stevo and Charlie,I don’t know how much you’d usually get as a sell on clause but would it be more than the £4m?
    Altough I’d still like to blame the cockney dwarf for everything thats gone wrong ;-)
    ………have you seen this about leicester’s penalty miss?….funny as f*** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iad3gV-9C1U

  6. Milner wasnt worth 12 million when we sold him and 20 million in a depressed market is ridiculous but City can spend anything they want and it wont even cause a ripple in their accounts.
    I didnt want him to leave as he is a grafter who never lets his head drop no matter how bad he is playing, he is a really nice man and the fact he uses the PFA as his agents sets him aside from the brats who demand hollywood treatment.
    If we are honest, most raised an eyebrow at the 12m we got but thats the gamble, if this bid is city putting down a mark ,then the rest of the clubs will be blown out of the water in the market, those that try to keep pace will implode.
    Silly money, what next, 20m for Steven Taylor?

  7. I always felt Milner would be far better in a central role a la Beardo, rather than stuck out on the wings and I’m not saying that being wise after the event.

  9. with man city who knows whats next – i think they will be the laughing stock in a few years time! i hope so anyway lol

  11. Sorry, but I agree with Charlie. Wise was a clown, but if he secured an extra £4m up front instead of a sell-on clause then imo he did exactly the right thing for the club. He deserves criticism for many of his actions, but not for this deal.

  12. The worst thing about the deal was that Keegan(according to him) was going to get the money to spend on other players which didn’t happen.I liked Milner as a player but at the time I thought £12m was a good price if it was re-invested in players………..the rest as they say is history.

  14. At the time £12 mil was a good price & that’s the only way it can be judged, Keegan thought he was getting the money for a replacement & as richietoon has already said…the rest is history. Lots of clubs have sold players who have gone on to greater things & usualy come back to haunt them, just look at bentley & arsenal

  15. wise is away boo hoo lets stop whinging and living in the past and get over it . milners gone wise is gone lets get on with things in the future.

    at the price villa paid theres no way a club would agree to a selling on fee

    lets stop complaining about wise for every decision made, evwen the freat Sir Bobby made mistakes remebr his thoughs on carl cort when he left . Dennis wise made mistakes but not every decision he made was wrong, this is old news from two seasons ago , lets move on or we just look more bitter

  17. Richie Toon thanks for the link .Got to agree one of the best and original football videos I’ve seen on you tube.

  18. Ye Lesh, some journo’s just don’t use logic when they make up these imagenary transfer links.
    Its a bit like saying Graeme Sounness is looking to sign Craig Bellemy.

  19. I see that Avram Grant has left Portsmouth.

    If Newcastle were looking for a “football” oriented man to come and run things, as they mentioned in the statement. Surely he would be the perfect candidate.

    He did the job at Chelsea under Mourinho?

  20. If jenas ever came back to our club, I would hunt him down and kick the living shite out of him and nail his head to the Percy arms, in the interest of improving morale of course.

  21. @19 where was it mentioned in the statement that newcastle were looking for a football “oriented” man?

  22. JermainE Jenas..nae chance.I still chuckle when I think of him playing for Spurs at St James’ picked the ball up about the halfway line ran whilst getting booed all the way just the keeper to beat from about 5 yards and put it wide,thanks for the memory :-)

  23. getting 4 million extra pounds is better than a 5-10% sell-on which is the max we wouldve got

    the spanish players were brought in by Jimenez and i doubt wise negotiated wages or leaving fees

    it doesnt sell us to players or managers coming in hating people for being cockneys. the club suffered not having a scouting network once wise left. look at bassong as well as vuckic which is the best business we’ve done in ages. they make up for xisco who martin o’neill challenegd us for

  24. I hate it when Milner was sold, but I thought the negotiator did well to secure 12M instead of 8M if the report was to be believed.

  25. Morale officer

    I was doing a report when Spuds where out here in South Africa for the Vodacom Challenge.
    There was a supper with the Spurs team. I had to take a team photo and a photo of Robbie Keane and Jermaine Jenas.
    There were obviously quite a few journalists. But when I took the photo, I said to Jermaine. “Don’t look so nervous, you look like you’re stuck in a goldfish bowl!”.

    Robbie Keane just packed out laughing, he seems a really good bloke – Jenas on the other hand, just got so embarrest. He couldn’t even look at the camera. I still have the photo. The look on his face is priceless…

    I’ll put it up on the NUFCBlog.org facebook site later…

  26. Nice story, JJ – love to see that pic.

    I think Wise is just massively amoral rather than stupid. The Milner deal, while a bad idea in terms of impact on the team, was fine. £12m up front better than £8m plus perhaps £2m sell-on.

    But…

    Wise almost certainly pocketed some of the extra that the agent got from that, which is why he pushed for it all up-front. Likewise with Xisco and Nacho, in my opinion.

    He ain’t stupid. He’s just a corrupt, nasty piece of work, and I’m pretty sure it was him Ashley was referring to when he said he’d taken bad advice from the wrong people. Sir Bobby’s verdict, as usual, was spot on.

  27. I just seen the Milner sale as asset stripping but did think as most people did £12m was a good price for a player that couldn’t score often or string together many good assists regularly….so to be honest I could never have seen Milners price go up in the future,seems me and wise had a similar mindset (Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!!!).

    Jenas can stay at Spudz in a cockney goldfish bowl-would never be welcome back here and wouldn’t have him back for free.

  28. yes let’s blame bong eye!
    Who on earth would think milner who couldn’t cross the ball at us, would be sold for £25 mill.
    12 mill was a great deal!
    Not a lover of the dwarf but look at all the players he identified, (except for xisco) mbia now worth £15 mill to arsenal, chamask? Arsenal,!

  29. “It appears that Villa wanted to pay £8 million for Milner, and Wise wanted £12 million. Villa said fine to that but took any sell-on clause out of the deal, which Wise accepted. Superb negotiation skills from Wise, and it makes you wonder how he was qualified to be put in such an important position within the club, despite the controversy it ended up causing.”

    Im sorry but this is utter tosh. As someone has said above, unless the clause was around the 25% mark (ridiculous and highly unlikely), then it would not have made much of a difference. I reckon the sell on clause would have been 10-15% maximum as higher sell on clauses seem to happen only with extremely young and lower value players. So it WAS INDEED good negotiation skills by Wise. Also, as someone said earlier, Milner was worth two thirds of what we got from him then, and mark my words, he is worth around half of what City will pay for him now. He is a £12.5million-£17.5million player

  30. BBB has this right.
    Good to see loads on here not biting on the ‘it was wise’s fault’, good one lads.

    He was always gonna play better centrally, pity none of our managers could work that out, mad…SBR, KK, all of ’em.
    Looked blatantly obvious to me like.
    Though he ain’t worth £20m & certainly not £25m.

  33. Can’t blame Wise for this really as much as I would like to blame him for anything and everything :)

    I don’t think Milner is worth £20-25m so if Villa can get that for him that’s good news for them especially if the can reinvest the money which they probably will.

    I do blame wise for world famine,global warming,cooling,police states,communism,fascism and bits of space debris though.

  34. Does anyone reckon we are close to signing a player?
    Was wondering this morning who Ashley might cash in on in this window….I would do a 3 for 1 style sports direct sale Lua Lua, Ameobi and Best for fifteen quid cash.

  35. sjt i think we will wait till the last week of the transfer window to try and sign someone,and when we get a knock back ashley can tell us all he tried

  38. When you negotiate, you rarely have it both ways. You either take a lower fee which typically rises depending on appearances or who get a slice of any future sell on fee. A club can pay more and at time of transfer and then keep all future profits. We got more than he was worth at the time and we all said, blimey, how can we refuse that? We got a great deal and should be happy and move on

  39. Milner was a promising U21 England international with proven Premiership pedigree and a great attitude. No reason why a sell-on clause wouldn’t be 15% in this day and age. £12m wasn’t so far-fetched in the market at the time. The maths work out well if you’re considering that he got an extra £4m upfront. I’m not sure it’s that simple, is it?

    I really dislike the loathsome, nasty little get. I don’t blame him for everything that went wrong at the time but I believe he was a very poor appointment given the structure at the club.

  41. I am not a PC so the virus won’t catch me :)
    I used to get zillions of spyware etc off .com on my old computer though.

  42. hitman says:
    May 21, 2010 at 10:47 am
    12mil for milner was a good deal at the time..

    Sorry about the virus, hitman.

    We believe there’s never a “good deal” when Mr Ashley is selling our players.

    Comments Welcome.

  47. sorry hitman – that was my attempt at a joke…

    insomnia – lose sleep

    i’ll get me coat :)

  50. what was the story on ed’s blog about a young italian player we’re ‘leading the chase’ for, you read it hitman?

  57. The 26-year-old saw a move to St James’ Park collapse 16 months ago and is now also reportedly receiving interest from West Bromwich Albion and Stoke City.

    Newcastle also face competition for Torino youth academy forward Maiorano, who has also been linked with West Ham United, West Brom and Cardiff City.

    Who in there right mind would rather play for any of the above teams before us Especially Baggies,Stoke,Cardiff….they must be prepared to pay proper wages or something cos neither club is a patch on us.

  58. Can’t believe people still talk on here as if the press rumours are true. Not sure if it’s mass gullibility or just Friday off-season boredom. I’ll go with the latter. :)

    got to comment on ed’s post – the blanket statement about ashley selling players always being bad business. Come on Ed – you’re better than that! Daft generalisation.

    I hope milner keeps improving; he’s a good lad who works hard. I don’t blame him for going or the club for taking a very good offer. I totally blame them – and particularly Wise – for failing to replace him.

  59. Why would anyone think that Wise had the juice to sign off on the actual amount that Milner went for – OR whether there was a sell-on clause in the agreement?

    Surely, Wise’s job was no more than first-line support when it came to player transfers, in or out. He was a ‘spotter’ an adviser, and a go-between.

    The fallout from this deal shouldn’t just be laid at the door of the poison dwarf.

  60. “got to comment on ed’s post”

    I sincerely hope you don’t think it is the Ed who wrotes that, Whumpie 8O ;)

  61. toonsy says:
    May 21, 2010 at 1:19 pm
    “got to comment on ed’s post”

    I sincerely hope you don’t think it is the Ed who wrotes that, Whumpie ;)

    We believe the heat is getting to the country bumpkins.

    Comments Welcome.

  63. haha my mate just sent this my way:

    “But the clear winner is the poster on a Rangers messageboard who
    came up with a cunning plan to get fans into Dundee United after the
    visitors’ allocation had sold out. He urged them to ring up the club
    shop and buy some Dundee United socks,
    give it a while, ring back and then get the tickets, safe in the
    …knowledge their details would be stored on the Tannadice system.

    Perfect, aside from the fact there was no such database, resulting
    in Rangers fans ending up with hundreds of pairs of Dundee United socks
    and no match tickets. The poster was a Celtic fan.”

  65. Is Kadar on anyone’s Radar?
    Sounds like he might be or sumthun’ :)

  66. Toonsy how does your emocicon thing move…is that just for the blog big boys mate?

  68. So where did this story come from? who’s got inside Villa & Toon information, or is this just another bogus story!!!

    I just wish people would give up on making bull$h1t stories & concentrate on find out the truth for a change…

  71. Sorry, I’ll ring Dennis Wise and Aston Villa up now. That is the only way we will find out the whole truth after all.

  82. I’ve created a monster. I bet you’ll be pulling your tail evertime you see a chance to use a new smiley now eh? ;)

  83. I will not abuse my smiley power Toonsy….like crack keep it in moderation.

  88. Maybe you should change the page title Dennis Wise ensures Toon miss out on Milner money. | Newcastle United Blog. to something more suited for your subject you create. I loved the the writing even sononetheless.