Hughes going nowhere
By The Chairman
Updated Saturday, 28th June 2008
he is on course to join the rest of the team for pre-season training
Rumours have been rife of late that striker Lee Hughes could be on his way north to
Dundee United but Athletic have quashed the reports. There have not been any enquiries for Hughes and, as the player is still under contract for another 12 months, if any deal were to be suggested it would take a hefty transfer fee to conclude any deal. The 32 year old has not played since January due to an operation on his persistent groin problem but his rehabilitation has gone well and he is on course to join the rest of the team for pre-season training next week.
Dundee boss Craig Levein has dismissed reports that he was attempting to take Hughes to Tannadice. He said, "What has happened here is that an agent called about Lee Hughes and told me he was out of contract. I did a wee bit of research, however, and found out he still had a year of his contract to run, so I did not even make an enquiry. Oldham would be wanting quite a bit of money for him and as we are still not exactly flavour of the month with them I couldn't see them wanting to do business with us anyway. If Hughes had been out of contract I would have been interested because he is a very good player. What happened in the past was extremely unfortunate, but he has served his penalty and should be allowed to move on."
The ill feeling comment is connected with United's attempting to take Chris Porter without a fee under the FIFA rules. Porter ended at
Motherwell, but it was their attempt that alerted other Scottish clubs of the possibility to take Porter to Scotland for free.
