Nottingham Forest shows how the transfer game is played with ex-Bayern Munich player

Omar Richards’ stay at Bayern Munich was short and sweet. The young Englishman was well liked by his fellow players and staff but considered surplus to needs after a single season on the Bayern roster. He was thus sold on to Nottingham Forest as they tried to build out their roster for the fight to stay up in the English Premier League.

Now it seems that he already had a hairline fracture in his leg when he left Bayern to join Forest which was not caught in his medical (x-rays are often not done in medicals). The leg fracture, a hernia and some other injuries derailed the entire first year of the young man at Forest.

According to The Athletic, this led to at least one interesting phone call between Forest owner Forest Evangelos Marinakis and members of Bayern’s hierarchy in an attempt to get recompense for buying damaged goods. But that is not the story we are covering here.

The story here is how Forest reacted to the new information about their prize acquisition in an attempt to get the best deal possible in the transfer market.

Knowing that clubs would try to squeeze them for more money for a new left-back if they knew Forest was desperate at that spot, they ran full PSYOPs to counter that risk.

It was not just a matter of not telling anyone that Richards was hurt (which they didn’t at the time), they spread information designed to make other clubs conclude that he was going to be the starting left-back on the squad.

It started with letting the word out that they were seeking new left-backs for depth behind Richards when they were out in the market looking for replacement talent. Then it got fun.

Forest’s media published photos on the team website of Richards training with the team when he in fact was not. The details of how this was done are not clear.

The team went so far as to list Richards as a sub for a preseason match against Hertha Berlin that he could not have played in due to his leg fracture.

Forest ended up with a top notch replacement at a reasonable price who was an important player in keeping them up after their promotion.

Perhaps a little subtlety and subterfuge might serve Bayern better than telling the world who they are trying to offload at press conferences?