Alex Ferguson yesterday laughed off any interest in the Japanese World Cup midfielder Hidetoshi Nakata. "Nonsense, absolute rubbish - I can assure you on that," said Manchester United's manager. "I don't even know who he is."
Ferguson was responding to reports that BSkyB, United's potential new owners, had already gone behind his back in making offers last week to bring the 21-year-old Japanese to Old Trafford even though he was only recently signed by the Italian club Perugia.
The offers for Nakata, said to range between £2 million and £6.25 million, were rejected. The midfielder, who cost Perugia pounds £2.7 million made a stunning debut on Sunday when he scored twice in the 4-3 home defeat by Juventus.
The Sky Sports head Vic Wakeling also denied the reports. "This story is completely untrue. During the last week there has been a lot of speculation. A lot of it has been mischievous and some of it downright fanciful. This story falls into that second category."
One report quoted a Perugia source as saying: "At no time during these negotiations was Ferguson's name touched upon, despite the fact it was clearly on behalf of Manchester United."
According to the reports Rupert Murdoch wants Nakata, idolised back home, because he would give his Star TV station, the equivalent of Sky in the Far East, a big ratings boost in Japan.
The club's spokesman Alberto Di Chiara said that a shirt deal would generate around £10 million. He added that 500,000 Perugia shirts bearing Nakata's name and his number seven had already been ordered by Japanese fans.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)