Everton rejected transfers for Bruno Guimaraes and Eder Militao before pair went on to shine for Newcastle and Madrid
EVERTON allegedly snubbed the chance to sign Bruno Guimaraes and Eder Militao before the pair went on to shine for Newcastle and Real Madrid.
The Toffees are in disarray and deep in a relegation dogfight as they search for a new manager to replace the axed Frank Lampard.
It comes amid years of poor recruitment, with talkSPORT host Simon Jordan claiming this week that agent Kia Joorabchian had too much influence at Goodison Park.
He was involved in a deal that brought his client Carlo Ancelotti to the club as manager in 2019 and his questions have been raised about his relationship with majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri.
Jordan accused him of pulling the strings at Everton – which led to the super-agent calling into the White and Jordan show to hit back at those claims.
And during the telephone call, Joorabchian revealed that he had been largely ignored by the Blues’ hierarchy over recent years when it came to transfers as he listed some of the big names they snubbed.
Joorabchian said: “Of course, as we do, we offered him many, many players, and they turned them all down.
“All the signings of the summer – James Tarkowski, Conor Coady, Neal Maupay, Dwight McNeil, the list goes on, all the loans and signings they [Everton] did – were done purely by them and the board. We didn’t have any involvement whatsoever.
“We speak to all the owners, I speak to quite a few club owners, but the point is, what is our job? Our job is to present what we have as a client list and say, ‘This is what we have’.
“And Everton haven’t taken any of our advice. So we can’t be that influential.”
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He added: “In the past, we have offered them Bruno Guimaraes at £16million when he was leaving Athletico Paranaense. They didn’t like him and they went for Jean-Philippe Gbamin instead and Guimaraes went to Lyon.
“Diego Carlos when he was leaving Nantes, we offered him [to Everton] at £11m before he went to Sevilla, and now he’s at Aston Villa.
“We offered them Eder Militao when he was leaving [first club Sao Paulo in Brazil, before he joined Porto – now he’s staring at Real Madrid].”