Real Madrid President Florentino Perez has slammed Ed Woodward, saying it's a "disgrace" that Manchester United are so inexperienced in handling transfers.
The Real Madrid supremo didn't mince words as he criticised United over the failure to complete the David de Gea to Real Madrid transfer this summer, and he claimed the Red Devils were at complete fault.
Perez said they knew that De Gea was the ideal replacement for Iker Casillas at Real as long as a year back, and the Madrid giants were even ready to present the player in a Real shirt, had not United played spoilsport in the 11th hour.
"We explained in our statement the other day exactly what happened with De Gea. We sent in the contracts at 1:30 PM and Manchester United waited eight hours to return them. For us the documents entered in at 00:02. We have proof of this and so does FIFA," Perez told Spanish radio station Cadena SER.
"It's a disgrace, I don't want to place the blame on anyone, but we don't understand why it took eight hours to return the contracts. The offer from them was to make them look good. It was an offer from people who are not experts in the world of football.
"It's the inexperience of the new people in charge. We have worked with them before [without problems], with Peter Kenyon and David Gil and with Sir Alex Ferguson," he added.
United, on their part, claimed that Real Madrid are to be blamed entirely for the transfer not to go through. According to the English Premier League side, Real did not upload De Gea's documents onto the TMS (Transfer Matching System) as well as the Spanish league in time.
But Perez slammed the statement and said that Real Madrid were concerned for the player, as the Spaniard himself wanted a moved to the Santiago Bernabeu. He also added that everyone would have been happy if the deal had gone through successfully.
"De Gea was a done deal the whole day, we had prepared his presentation, but it wasn't to be. During evening we felt we wouldn't get it done because we knew the lack of experience with this at United. I think Man Utd lack experience with these things. This also happened with us with Coentrão and Athletic with Herrera," Perez continued.
"A year ago we new the most appropriate replacement for Casillas was De Gea. As of now I don't know what's going to happen with De Gea. I haven't spoken to him. I know De Gea was very affected because he really wanted to come. On Monday, when Utd told us they would negotiate, we tried for the player because we couldn't leave him hanging".
"If the deal had been done, everyone would have been satisfied," he added.
