DaveO wrote:
I am not sure what is so difficult to understand about this "If Wigan expected and wanted an NRL side to stump up the cash for 2019 I am disappointed because I'd like to think the transfer fee was a deterrent to NRL sides not a money making punt from Wigan where they expect a windfall."
To try and explain, if Wigan put a huge fee on him because they wanted to keep him until 2020 and expected the fee to be a real deterrent then great. If however they set the fee at a level they thought an NRL team would bite at, effectively putting a "for sale" sign around his neck then not great.
I doubt the fee would’ve been a measure to act as a deterrent because if it was high then I doubt Bateman would’ve signed the contract.
It’ll be realistic by modern standards I’d have thought and put in as a way of keeping him last time whilst also covering us should a club come in for him. If I had to guess at an amount I’d have thought it would be around the £100,000-£120,000 mark and that’s why I really hope we stick to our guns and don’t accept anything under what was in the contract, even if that risks him walking away for nothing at the end of 2019.
Bateman has said in an interview with Sky today that nothing is sorted either way and that he’s very happy at Wigan. His words were that he keeps ‘batting it back and forth with Wigan’ and that it’s a huge decision due to his family as it’s on the other side of the world so we can only keep our fingers crossed we’ve still a chance.
Makes sense.
