Newcastle United passed on Luka Modric and Karim Benzema?

According to Tony Jimenez, Kevin Keegan passed on the chance to bring in Luka Modric and Karim Benzema.

According to a new report from the Daily Mail, Tony Jimenez, the former Recruitment Chief of Newcastle United, refuted some information that Kevin Keegan mentioned in his autobiography during his time as manager in 2008.

The disagreement between Jimenez and Keegan is centered on two superstar footballers – Luka Modric and Karim Benzema. In his book, Keegan said that he was interested in signing Luka Modric, who was recently voted as the World’s Best Male Player by FIFA, but Jimenez blocked the move. Modric was still playing for Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia at the time.

Transfer Drama

Jimenez disagreed with this section of Keegan’s book and claimed that he had no say in the decision to pass on Luka Modric. The decision came from Mike Ashley who did not agree with Dinamo Zagreb’s valuation of Modric, which was around £16 million at the time.

As a result of this disagreement, Jimenez continued to steamroll Keegan by saying that the former manager rejected several talented players and had an unrealistic transfer wish list. According to Jimenez, some key players that Keegan quickly passed on were Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri, Hatem Ben Arfa, Jermain Defoe and many others.

Moreover, Jimenez went on to mention some unrealistic names that Keegan wanted to bring to Newcastle even though he knew that Mike Ashley was only giving him a transfer budget of €25 million. Here is what Jimenez had to say about Keegan’s transfer expectations:

"He didn’t want Hatem Ben Arfa or Karim Benzema either. We asked Kevin for a list of players for every position, bearing in mind he had £25million to spend. Our list included Benzema and Ben Arfa, who were young players at Lyon, as well as Samir Nasri.[…]Kevin took one look and called them all chancers. His list was David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Ronaldinho, Kaka, among others. We added their transfer value up and it was £399m, plus £100m in wages"

After being notified of Jimenez’s interview, Keegan claimed that everything in his book is the truth. No outsiders, including myself, can tell who is lying and who is being sincere. However, it is sad to think that Newcastle has been suffering from transfer window dilemmas for a decade now.

To read Tony Jimenez’s full interview, click here.