Bumper Sales
There was some early Christmas cheer for Grilled's accountants, as the transfers of trainees
Martin Torsson and
Zheng Lihai managed to more or less fill the hole in the club kitty burned by the arrival of
Chow Ying Lee. The two players went for a combined total of over S$4.7 million gross, which will do a lot to help Grilled's financial stability.
Versatile Swedish attacker Torsson went for S$2.7 million to Spanish Division Eight club Trup Returns, having attracted plenty of early attention, with Grilled's S$2.25 million asking price met without hesitation by Brazil's Garatéia F C. However, Corvi F.C. (Italian Division Eight), BURŠÍCI (Czech Division Six) and Los del Rahue F.C. (Chilean Division Five) quickly talked Torsson up, before Trup Returns decided to bid half of what they received for Dutch midfield prodigy Eef Beunis.
"Trup are an ambitious club who have steadily risen about a division a season." the 21 year-old Torsson remarked in his leaving interview. "To be frank, I was a little tired of playing only partial matches. This is a good opportunity for me to establish myself as a regular."
If Torsson's S$2.7 million price tag was slightly more than what Grilled had expected, they were even more pleasantly surprised when Taiwanese forward
Zheng Lihai, who celebrated his twentieth birthday yesterday, too broke the S$2 million mark. His new home will be with Chilean Division Six club Immortal Heroes, who won out against Argentinean representatives paykin after a frightfully long bidding war.
Italian Division Nine side Audax Ficarazzi were the first to put up the million bucks that Grilled wanted, with Israeli Division Six club beitar for following suit; paykin then signalled their resolve by raising directly to S$1.42 million, but they didn't count on Immortal Heroes also being interested.
Lihai was not all that willing to leave, but the prospect of being genuinely in contention for a first-team place was hard to resist. It will hardly be a gimme for the hardworking Zheng, though, as Immortal Heroes had brought in competition in the form of German lad Dragan Čelebić earlier in the day.
While the Grilled fans were not all that eager either to see two promising youngsters leave, they appeared content with the exchange, which put Chow's S$4.5 million price tag into perspective.
Ângelo Cunha Simões, one of the forwards who remained, agreed. "I will miss them, but we all want to play in the end. This should relieve some of the stress around here."
