Page 157 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

season, however, I sensed increasingly that he would not be staying in north London.
His agent contacted us. By then he had already been talking to Man City, but the message was that
Robin would be very, very interested in having a discussion with us. Eventually City were advised
that he would not be joining them, so it appeared to be between us and Juventus; the club had, I

gathered, offered him an immense salary to move to Turin.
My thinking was: there are two reasons why a player wants to move. 1. For the glory, and 2. For
the money. I could see why he might have wanted to join Juventus – a fine team – for an astronomical
reward. The package we could offer was good enough to show him how much we respected him. Our
invitation was backed up with great enthusiasm.
Next, we began talking to Arsenal about a possible transfer fee. David Gill phoned Ivan Gazidis,
the Arsenal chief executive, a number of times, starting in April, but was told that Arsenal believed

they could persuade him to sign a new deal. This carried on for a while until David suggested I
should call Arsène directly as he would clearly have the final say on any transfer. By then it had
become apparent the boy was leaving.
Arsène’s attitude, understandably, was: why should we sell to Manchester United when we could
get £30 million off Man City or Juventus? My response was to point out that the player had no desire
to go to our Manchester rivals. Arsène’s counter-argument was that Robin’s view of it might change if

City made him a further offer he could not refuse.
It was certainly possible.
These discussions, I should say, were amicable. There was no hint of hostility. We were two
experienced managers confronting reality. The sticking point was that Arsène hoped to receive £30
million or more for his best player. It continued to drag on for several weeks, during which time I
phoned Arsène two or three more times.
In time we all arrived at the point where Arsenal knew Robin was not going to re-sign and

accepted that. Their options were Juventus or United. Arsenal were trying to sell him abroad, but the
player only wanted to join us. My understanding is that Van Persie sat down with Arsène and told him
United was his preferred destination. Our offer, from David Gill to Gazidis, was £20 million. I
warned Arsène that we would never get to £25 million.
Arsène was incredulous. He could not believe that Manchester United would refuse to stretch to
£25 million for such a player.

I told him again: I wouldn’t go to £25 million. Arsène asked what my best offer would be. Answer:
£22 million. The reply was that Arsenal would take £22.5 million and a further £1.5 million if we
won the Champions League or Premier League during the period of his contract.
Deal done.
My intuition was that Arsène was relieved not to be selling Van Persie to Man City, who had
already taken Kolo Touré, Gaël Clichy, Emmanuel Adebayor and Samir Nasri from his team. Perhaps
he is not a fan of City’s ownership model. And although we had many battles over the years, I think he

respected the way Manchester United was run. He said that to me on occasions. I always remember
Arsène saying to me about Van Persie: ‘You don’t realise what a good player you’re getting.’
I thought of Cantona and Ronaldo and Giggs. But Arsène was right. Robin’s movement and the
timing of runs were mesmerising. He was also blessed with a formidable physique.
Van Persie took a lower, but still fantastic, wage from us to come to a place where he believed he
could be most successful. At his unveiling he said his inner child had been ‘screaming for United’. He

told me later that in Holland every kid dreams of playing for Man United.
He knew I had been to see him when he was 16. Arsenal beat us to him when he was emerging as a