National League Boreham Wood have sold Abdul Abdulmalik for over £1M.
Club chairman Danny Hunter has spoken about the deal which include a number of add-ons.
'In recent weeks, as you’ve possibly heard, we’ve had to make a few tough decisions and deal with a bit of transfer drama involving our own “little maverick”, Abdul Abdulmalik. Though we tried desperately to keep him, it became very clear that was going to be almost impossible, and so the decision was made to sell him – but we wanted it done fairly and on our terms.
In truth, over the last few weeks, Luke and the dressing room have remained very focused and nothing has disrupted them too much. Most of the noise regarding a deal with Djurgårdens IF tended to come from others on social media, which I don’t tend to read.
What I can say is that I laid out the course of events regarding the transfer saga in my last programme notes, and I can now confirm that we have sold Abdul for an undisclosed non-league record fee. We refused to be rushed or railroaded by anything or anybody. We stuck to our guns on a series of fair but achievable add-ons, including a sell-on fee, appearance fees and an international clause.
In truth, negotiations were not always plain sailing, but I’m an experienced Chairman and have very good staff around me who all know their jobs. I knew the true value of this player, as most of you did, and at our level he really was a Rolls-Royce.
That said, in any fluid negotiation you need negotiators who know how to play the game without emotion, who understand what the end game is and who know what value must be put on any fair deal. Once we knew Abdul had made his mind up to leave us no matter what, it became evident that he was prepared, on the advice of others, to down tools for the foreseeable future.
As such, both my mentality and the club’s had to change or, put more simply, we then needed to get the very best deal possible, remain fluid and have the ability to compromise and recalculate our position if need be. At that point, a difficult and sometimes noisy negotiation is never easy to re-evaluate, and you must factor the risk-to-reward element into your thinking.
I feel experience helped us in this instance and, whatever happens, you must ensure you do not make false promises, show others any weakness or allow for any self-doubt.
In truth, both my position and Charlie Hunter’s became slightly easier as others went to the press and social media and showed their hand, while we waited before making our position clear – and only from within my programme notes. We focused solely on the club and Manager’s wants and needs, and we gave NO outside interviews.
I feel that by being a bit pragmatic, old-school and calm, by refusing to deal with the player’s agent throughout, and by having a very clear valuation in my head regarding which add-ons were key, we knew where we would compromise and where we could possibly steer the negotiations. That stance, ably co-ordinated by Charlie Hunter, got us to a place where everyone was happy.
Once the noise and a bit of silly behaviour didn’t get the reaction some people expected, proper negotiations could then take place in earnest between the two clubs. At this point, I’d like to thank Max Hann of Djurgårdens IF for his professionalism in getting the deal done, along with Charlie, with plenty of time to spare and without any further drama.
In terms of what the future might hold for Abdul, who in truth knows? What I can say is: “The sky really is the limit for this very talented player.”
In my opinion, I would expect him to be a Nigerian international before too long, I would expect him to become an exciting regular within the Djurgårdens IF set-up, and I would expect him to go to the very top in Sweden and be sold on for a sizeable profit within three years.
If Abs does all of those things, trust me, Boreham Wood Football Club will have deservedly benefited at all stages of the signed deal because of the time, care, nurturing and development we put into Abdul during his time with us.
So, as that joyous chapter closes, we of course wish Abdul, his family and friends well in everything they do, but our main focus must quickly turn to our own ambitions. Hopefully, that means a successful promotion push and providing whatever is needed for our Manager and dressing room to keep us moving forward.'
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