Clarets Chronicles

John Cofie

Manchester United have beaten Liverpool and Chelsea in the race for 14-year-old Clarets wonderkid striker John Cofie. The Red Devils agreed an undisclosed fee with the Clarets last week.

Burnley had by all accounts rejected a derisory £250,000 bid from Liverpool for Cofie earlier, rating the lad at about £1 million at least in compensation for losing the hot prospect.

However the German-born Ghanaian refused to return to training with the Clarets (what power and worrying!) and the Club had no option but to agree he could leave for Old Trafford.

The Clarets however do have a 25% sell-on clause in the deal and this also gives them first refusal on any loan deal plus a future friendly match with United.

It will be three years before Cofie can sign professional terms at Old Trafford and the friendly game will take place within 12 months of that.

John Cofie was spotted and signed by the Clarets last summer following a youth tournament in Germany.

'The player was unwilling to come back to Burnley so we didn't have a choice in keeping him here,' Clarets operational director Brendan Flood told our Official website.

'He was going to go to one of the clubs chasing his signature and in the end, we all felt that Manchester United was the right option.

'He has a good future ahead of him and hopefully we can try and keep youngsters of John's quality at the club in future.'

Claret International

The Clarets now have a two week break following the Euro 2008 International qualifiers to be played over the next couple of weeks. It was however good news for some of our players called up for International duty.

The best news was that midfielder, Chris McCann gets his first chance to represent the Republic of Ireland Under 21 team with two games coming up later this month.

Kyle Lafferty is of course suspended for Northern Ireland's next match against Denmark at Windsor Park on Saturday November 17th but he will be available for the trip to Group F rivals Spain on Wednesday November 21, at Estadio de Gran Canaria in Las Palmas.Steve Jones is on stand-by for the squad.

Icelandic international, Joey Gudjonsson also gets a call up with the Iceland squad travelling to Denmark for their game on Wednesday November 21.

Hands off Kyle Lafferty!

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy appears to be the latest manager to take a shine to our striker. The Sunday papers suggested he might come in with a bid in the January transfer window. Fulham and Newcastle are two Premier League clubs that have also been linked. Might be tempted with £3 million plus player swops!!

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