Batistuta won't offer much Turkish delight

EUROSCENE/Paddy Agnew: Being the time of year that's in it, the news this week that Turkish club Fenerbahce have made a lucrative offer for Argentina and AS Roma striker Gabriel Batistuta inevitably prompts some wry considerations.

"Batigol" is under contract in Rome until June 30th, but his form of late has been so poor the club have decided to offload him during the winter break.

Fenerbahce director Aziz Yildirim has tempted Batistuta with a contract reportedly paying €3 million a year until June 2005.

Batistuta is linked to one of the great footballing enigmas of 2002, namely Argentina's first round elimination from the World Cup finals. Given both the quality of the Argentinian squad and the team's impressive performance in topping the South American qualifying group, many pundits had made them favourites to win the tournament.

In reality, it was always going to be difficult for Argentina in an absurdly strong first round group that also contained England, Sweden and Nigeria. Lest that comment look like cheapskate hindsight, let us recall what we predicted in The Irish Times World Cup magazine last May: "On paper, Argentina appear to have all the ingredients necessary for winning this World Cup - an impressive historical track record, a strong, settled squad, a single-minded coach and, last but not least, world class individual talent in men like Samuel, Veron, Kily Gonzales and Crespo.

"That is the theory. In practice, however, even Argentina could go out in this toughest of all first round groups."

One of the realities of this World Cup is it was seriously flawed by a seeding system which meant the host countries, Japan and South Korea, both normally fourth seeds, had to be given first seed ratings for obvious organisational reasons. This led to some seriously imbalanced first round groups.

While Argentina had to start off in their "Group of Death", eventual winners Brazil strolled through a first round which involved cliffhangers against those two renowned football super-powers, Costa Rica and China.

If Argentina had been good enough, however, the draw would not have stopped them. And that is where we come back to Mr Batistuta. While it is true Manchester United's Juan Veron was very disappointing, one of the most debated selections made by any coach at the finals concerned Argentina coach Marcelo Bielsa's preference for Batistuta over Inter Milan's Hernan Crespo.

Perhaps old loyalties swayed Bielsa. After all, when he was coach at Newell's Old Boys in the late 1980s, one of the most promising youngsters at the club was Batistuta. His temperament, combative attitude and class all persuaded Bielsa it was worth taking one more chance with the old warrior.

When Batistuta produced the goods with the headed goal that secured a 1-0 opening win against Nigeria, Bielsa appeared to have been proved right. Alas, he was not. That goal against Nigeria was simply a last hurrah.

Batistuta, as just about any AS Roma fan would tell you, has not been his old self for 18 months and more. Due to clock up 34 years on February 1st, he is clearly in an "end of career" phase. Scorer of a record 56 goals in 78 international appearances. as well as 182 Serie A goals, he has scored only 10 Serie A goals since September 2001.

Yet, recent poor form notwithstanding, Fenerbahce are reportedly ready to take advantage of the January transfer window to sign the player. Premiership club Fulham are also reportedly interested in his services.

Given that Batistuta is out of contract at the end of this season, Fulham could get the Argentinian on a "free" transfer deal that would, however, have to take account of his imposing salary. Last year, for instance, Batistuta declared pre-tax earnings of €8,742,262, about 66 per cent of which came via his AS Roma salary.

The next few days or months will tell us whether Batistuta is still worthy of such a pay packet. We suspect not.