Ronaldinho landedManchester United and Paris St-Germain officials will spend today finalising Ronaldinho's transfer, with the French club confident they can squeeze a fee of 30m from Old Trafford.
United's offer - worth Euros €28m - tabled last Friday fell marginally short of PSG's valuation of the 23-year-old Brazilian international forward, with the club conscious that the player is entitled to 20 per cent of any fee. Talks continued over the weekend and will gather pace today in an attempt to conclude the transfer.
The player has already agreed personal terms with United on a deal worth £ 60,000 (86,600) a week. United are anxious to complete the signing before they travel to the United States on a pre-season tour at the end of the week.
Real Madrid's bid - a down-payment of £16.5m and the waiving of the £6m still owed on Nicolas Anelka's transfer to PSG three years ago with the Brazilian moving to Spain next summer - will be formally tabled by the president Florentino Perez today and is PSG's favoured option, but Ronaldinho is reluctant to remain in Paris even for only 12 months more and the Spanish giant's bid seems destined to fail. Similarly, Ronaldinho is not convinced by the offer of a one-off payment of £20m from billionaire Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.
Howard move made
The US international goalkeeper Tim Howard will undertake a medical at Manchester United's Carrington training centre today before completing a £1.2m move from the New York/New Jersey MetroStars worth £20,000 a week. The 24-year-old was initially denied a work permit, but has since been given the green light thanks to his Hungarian mother.
Sunderland aid
Sunderland are liaising with the Professional Footballers' Association in an 11th-hour attempt to prevent the club going into administration.
Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the players' union, yesterday explained: "We are in talks with Sunderland and are trying to come up with a life-saving package."
Taylor and Bob Murray, Sunderland's chairman, are negotiating a wage-deferment arrangement with several first-teamers in the hope that bankruptcy can be staved off. With the club, relegated to the First Division in May, already £30m in debt, they have asked four of the best-remunerated players, namely Tore Andre Flo - understood to earn £42,000 a week - Kevin Phillips, Gavin McCann and Thomas Sorensen to accept deferred payment of a "significant" percentage of their salaries.
The quartet - all of whom Murray is desperate to sell - are believed to have agreed "in principle" and the scheme is expected to be extended to include other players.
Following his side's 4-0 victory against Durham City in their first pre-season friendly on Saturday, Mick McCarthy, Sunderland's manager, said: "This is an issue I can't discuss because I haven't talked about it to my players yet."
Sick note to go home
Darren Anderton is considering quitting Tottenham after the club the midfielder made his name with, Portsmouth, made an official approach to land him.
The First Division champions' manager Harry Redknapp has identified Anderton as the replacement for the former Aston Villa midfielder Paul Merson, who appears set for a return to the Midlands with Walsall or Nottingham Forest.
Anderton, who is in La Manga with the Spurs squad, is holding out for clarification of his position at Tottenham - who have a further year's option on a contract that has 12 months still to run - but he will be disappointed. Glenn Hoddle is desperate to off-load the 30-year-old former England midfielder and will let him go for free.
"It's a question of cutting back the dead wood," said a less than circumspect source at White Hart Lane.
Portsmouth have offered him a three-year contract that is believed to be worth Pounds 20,000 a week but Anderton has yet to respond to Redknapp's overtures.
Reid in the market
Leeds United manager Peter Reid says he has money to spend on the transfer market despite the premier league club being heavily in debt.
Leeds, whose debts stood at £78.9 million in March, lost Australian forward Harry Kewell to Liverpool last week in a deal which earned the Yorkshire club just three million pounds.
But shrugging off the gloom, Reid was quoted as telling the Sunday Mirror: "I do have money to spend and I can get players.
"It has been difficult financially but it now comes down to my decision who comes and goes. That's pleasing - it's now about football decisions, not financial ones.
"The main priority is to add to the squad. Certain areas need strengthening. I think the back does and the midfield. We need a creative player and a bit of cover up front."
Kewell was just the latest top player to leave the club over the past year, joining midfielders Olivier Dacourt and Lee Bowyer, defenders Jonathan Woodgate and Rio Ferdinand, plus strikers Robbie Fowler and Robbie Keane.
Kewell's United snub
Harry Kewell turned down the chance to join Manchester United because he wanted to join a club that was "on the up". The Leeds midfielder has joined Liverpool for £5 million on a five-year deal that has sparked controversy.
Kewell's advisors have picked up £2 million of the fee which has led to acrimony between Leeds chairman Professor John McKenzie and the player's agent Bernie Mandic.
Mandic told BBC 5 Live's Sportsweek's programme: "Harry wanted to go to club he felt were on the up." He added: "Manchester United had a huge amount of success over the years. I think United, if you look at cycles, are destined to go into a downturn whether this year, next year, whenever."
Mandic dismissed the notion that Kewell may not have held down a regular place in the United side. "I think Harry, considering the money being offered, would have been guaranteed a first team place. You don't pay that sort of money to an individual or a club to sit on the bench. That wasn't an issue."
