Dave Cormack in bullish Aberdeen transfer vow as he promises lowball player sales are a thing of the past

14.12.2022 - 01:47 / dailyrecord.co.uk

Aberdeen chief Dave Cormack has pledged the club will no longer be suckered into losing their top players for free or at a knockdown price.

The Dons chairman looked back on the last few seasons when the team lost key midfielders like Ryan Jack to Rangers and Graeme Shinnie to Derby County for nothing, while Kenny McLean left for Norwich City with just £100,000 changing hands as the Scotland player played out his Pittodrie contract. Aberdeen have embarked on a path which will see them nurture their best young talent with a view to selling them on for big money, like they did with Calvin Ramsay to Liverpool for up with £8m with add-ons, and Lewis Ferguson to Serie A outfit Bolognia for £3m.

He said: “We’re not going to go back to the situation where we got £100,000 for Kenny McLean because Norwich signed him on a pre-contract or Ryan Jack and Graeme Shinnie who left for nothing. What we’ve been able to do is really invest in the youth academy, the recruitment team we’ve got and the analysts who are looking at these players across the world.”

Star striker Bojan Miovski, a summer recruit from MTK Budapest and ex-Benfica attacker Luis “Duk” Lopes are attracting attention from across Europe. Cormack said: “We’ve got scouts from across the world coming for the upcoming Celtic and Rangers games and they are not necessarily coming to watch players in those teams.

“We’ve been able to open doors now we’ve never opened before and people are looking at Aberdeen and saying ‘that’s the place I want to be for the next three or four years’. We paid €650,000 (£556,000) for Miovski and that’s not chump change. MTK turned down €2million from Granada in the January window and we got him in the summer and we think it was a good investment for