{"id":1023,"date":"2024-08-02T21:29:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T21:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/?p=1023"},"modified":"2024-08-02T21:29:12","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T21:29:12","slug":"the-reason-behind-michael-essiens-failed-1999-transfer-to-burnley-exposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/?p=1023","title":{"rendered":"The reason behind Michael Essien&#8217;s failed 1999 transfer to Burnley exposed.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/Screenshot-2024-06-21-114753-696x391-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1024\" style=\"width:710px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/Screenshot-2024-06-21-114753-696x391-1.png 696w, https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/Screenshot-2024-06-21-114753-696x391-1-300x169.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 696px) 100vw, 696px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Former Burnley Chairman Brendan Flood has revealed that the club missed out on signing Michael Essien in 1999 due to wage issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Essien, who gained prominence at the U-17 FIFA World Cup in New Zealand in 1999, was pursued by several clubs despite Ghana\u2019s elimination in the semi-finals after losing to Brazil on penalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Burnley, then playing in the Third Tier of English football, came close to signing Essien after trials, but failed to secure his services due to wage demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reflecting on the missed opportunity, Flood shared in a 2009 interview with The People: \u201cI discovered Michael Essien had been on trial here for a few days. One of the best players in the World Cup \u2013 and we hadn\u2019t signed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe club policy meant we wouldn\u2019t pay an apprentice more than 60 quid a week. It smacked me in the face that the problem was a lack of communication within the club that stopped our youth guys from making an exception to the rule,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the failed deal, Michael Essien went on to play for Bastia, Lyon, and eventually made a big-money move to Chelsea in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He later played for Real Madrid, AC Milan, and other top European clubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Burnley Chairman Brendan Flood has revealed that the club missed out on signing Michael Essien in 1999 due to wage issues. Essien, who gained [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1025,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/1025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}