As you're probably aware by now Harry Redknapp's book is coming out today and has been serialised in the Daily Mail this week.
Today's extracts include some stories about his 'wackiest transfer deals'.
Paulo Futre signed for West Ham in 1996 and the Portuguese player was quite insistent that he should get the number 10 shirt.
Eddie Gillam, our trainer, had given him the No 16 shirt and got it thrown back in his face. Next thing, Paulo was in my face, too. ‘Futre 10, not 16,’ he said. ‘Eusebio 10, Maradona 10, Pele 10; Futre 10, not f***ing 16.’
By this point, there were 45 minutes to kick-off. ‘It’s changed now, Paulo,’ I explained, as gently as I could. ‘We’ve got squad numbers and your number is 16. We didn’t choose that number. When you came, all the numbers were gone, so the kit man gave you No 16.’
‘No 10,’ he insisted. ‘Futre 10. No 10. Milan, Atletico Madrid, Porto, Benfica, Sporting — Futre 10.’
Now it was getting desperate. I tried to be firm. ‘Paulo, put your shirt on, get changed, please, we have a big game. If you don’t want to wear it, Paulo, off you go,’ I said.And he did…
In the end he did get the number 10 shirt from it's owner at the time, John Moncur, and all it really cost him was letting Moncur stay at his villa in the Algarve for two weeks.
At first we tried to tell him that we had sold so many replicas with ‘Futre 16’ on the back that it would be impossible to change, but he called our bluff.
‘How many?’ he asked. ‘I will pay £100,000.’ And that was when I knew this was an argument we could not win. Futre was willing to spend £100,000 just to be No 10. In the end, he got it a lot cheaper.
John Moncur, the No 10, agreed to swap, and Paulo let him have two weeks in his villa in the Algarve, which is about the best one there, on the cliffs overlooking the best golf course.
