MANCHESTER United have won the race for Burnley's Ghanaian wonder kid John Cofie.
Sir Alex Ferguson has beaten off interest from Liverpool and Chelsea in agreeing a deal for the 14-year-old striker, who was spotted at a youth tournament in Germany.
Rafa Benitez was reportedly ready to spend £250,000 for Cofie, who refused to return to training at Turf Moor - but the Championship side opted to deal with United instead.
Cofie cannot sign professional terms at Old Trafford for another three years, but Ferguson was determined to get the German-born Ghanaian into his famed youth academy.
As part of the deal United will play Burnley in a friendly - as well as giving them a 25 percent sell-on clause and first refusal should the teenager go out on loan.
Burnley operational director Brendan Flood said: "The player was unwilling to come back to Burnley so we didn't have a choice in keeping him here.
"He was going to go to one of the clubs chasing his signature and in the end, we all felt that Manchester United was the right option.
"He has a good future ahead of him and hopefully we can try to keep youngsters of John's quality at the club in future."
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Bradley (11/11/2007 at 23:19)
Wunderkid (12/11/2007 at 01:02)
Wunderkid (12/11/2007 at 01:06)
Before it probably would've been Arsenal, Barca or Chelsea signing this kind of kid BUT NOW IT'S US! And we're still being linked to Michael Chrisantus, Angel di Maria, Fabio, Raphael, Stevan Jovetic and the links with Freddy Adu never go away either.
Add to this possible future lot the likes of Ronnie, Rooney, Anderson, Nani, Febain Brandy etc and " THE FUTURE'S BRIGHT, THE FUTURE'S RED!"
johny crossans croissant, warrington (12/11/2007 at 15:58)
Connor Barrett, Heywood (12/11/2007 at 16:07)
Mick, Dublin (12/11/2007 at 16:26)
The, much less used, English equivalent would be wonder-kid or wonder kid (i.e. two separate words)
Seen it all before, Manchester (12/11/2007 at 17:15)
The new "........."(insert name of over-hyped media darling here)"(yawn)
He's 14!
And signed for you lot after "refusing to train with Burnley"-the club who no doubt gave him his chance in the game.How inspiring.
"Billy big time" arrogant rag attitude at that age?:-)
He'll fit in perfectly.
Alias Smith, over the moon (12/11/2007 at 17:30)
Austin Powers (12/11/2007 at 22:07)
Compared to the only Manchester club who actually play Academy products in the Premier League without the hype.
RANDYRED (13/11/2007 at 10:31)
Pmsl.
Let chitty sign him coz they need some decent signings.
Mick, Dublin (13/11/2007 at 12:51)
Alias, I see you've read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" too. Cracking book, for a pedant like meself! ;)
Adamski 1, Jos City, Plateau State, Nigeria. (13/11/2007 at 14:28)