Hughes: War of the Words

30 July 2001

Something of a disagreement has broken out between the Club and the Sunday Mercury. Yesterday, the latter printed a piece about the Lee Hughes contract situation, in their typically negative style, starting with the words:

"Lee Hughes will infuriate Albion's board and hold out for a lucrative Bosman free deal after being issued with an amazing contract snub by the Club"

The article went on to say that Hughes had been "slapped" on the transfer list, and that Blues, Wolves and Coventry were queuing up to sign him. It also described his reception at Kidderminster the previous day as "a heroes welcome" - something of a suprise to the Albion fans who went to the game and saw nothing of the sort. The "contract snub" they mentioned turns out to be their view that the Club were only prepared to offer Hughes a one-year contract.

Today, on the official website, Albion Chairman Paul Thompson dismissed the report as "misleading" and demanded a written apology from the paper. He insisted that the Club had done everything possible to keep Hughes, and were prepared to offer contracts up to five years in length to do so. Interestingly, neither story actually states that Hughes had been offered a contract, just that the Club were "prepared to offer" - but this could well be pure semantics.

The talk of queues of local Clubs fighting for his signature also seems rather speculative - it's been widely reported that Hughes is after Premiership football, not a move to a local rival. Rumours reaching us here at BOING suggest that he is on the brink of signing for either Everton or Middlesbrough, despite Thompson's assurance that he will start the season in an Albion shirt - but then, rumours surrounding Lee have been ten a penny for years now...

Previous Stories:

  27 July 2001:  Roberts out for six weeks

  27 July 2001:  Hughes rejects new contract

  24 July 2001:  Cummings joins on loan

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