Unhappy Cole in talks with Fulham
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Your support makes all the difference.Andy Cole is in talks about signing with Fulham as his time at Blackburn Rovers reaches an acrimonious end with a golden handshake in sight.
Andy Cole is in talks about signing with Fulham as his time at Blackburn Rovers reaches an acrimonious end with a golden handshake in sight.
Cole spoke to Chris Coleman, the Fulham manager, about a two-year contract worth around £4m yesterday while his Rovers team-mates headed for Germany. But the deal will only go through once Cole accepts a pay-off from Blackburn for the last year of his deal with them.
The former Manchester United and Newcastle striker Cole is due around £3m in wages and final loyalty payment and feels he is entitled to a sizable portion of that money because he did not ask to leave.
The board intervened in a dispute between Cole and manager Graeme Souness and decided to give him a severance deal, believed to be around £700,000. With Fulham's wages on top of that, Cole will not be out of pocket, but the striker will not move until he is happy with the terms offered by Blackburn.
Cole feels that he is being pushed out after a disagreement with Souness, while the money men on all sides are attempting to broker a deal without bad feelings between the pair causing complications.
Souness wants Cole out of the club to give him funds for a new signing and also because of the possibility that their soured relationship could split the dressing room. Dwight Yorke and Andy Todd have also been told that they can leave.
Souness and Cole fell out last season when Blackburn had a poor campaign after qualifying for Europe the previous two years. That frustration appears to have spilled over in the summer, following the arrival of the striker Paul Dickov from Leicester City.
Fulham have persuaded Amdy Faye to join them from Portsmouth in a £3m deal after almost doubling his wages. Faye will replace Sean Davis as the anchor man in the side.
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