Former Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn convinced Liverpool to pay over-the-odds for Jordan Henderson, who captained England in their scoreless draw with Slovakia on Tuesday.
Former Liverpool director-of-football Damien Comolli was the man in talks with Quinn to bring Henderson to Anfield and eventually got sacked over the deal after the midfielder joined for £20m.
Owner John F. Henry wasn't too keen on the deal and it was the pinnacle of some poor deals Comolli was involved in, and theCroniclehe revealed all.
Joined from Sunderland. Almost pushed out the door to Fulham.
Became Liverpool captain and now captains England.
Jordan Henderson..
Quinn persuaded Comolli to pay over £1.5m over budget for Henderson, who only recently has started to match that £20m valuation.
Comolli said: "We pushed the boat out for him,� and addedWe had a budget in mind and I kind of decided to go over the budget by a million-and-a-half - a bit more actually."
Ex-Manchester City and Sunderland striker Quinn was the key man in negotiations and without his presence in the deal we would probablystill be seeing Henderson in a Sunderland strip.
Comolli went on to say this about his involvement,In thenegotiation's, Niall Quinn told me one thing that triggered something in my head."
Quinn said to Comolli, that afterHenderson blazed a free-kick into thestands in a derby match against Newcastle, "theweek after the game he took about 300 free-kicks on his own just to make sure it would not happen again."
And from this Comolli saw leadership characteristics worthy of replacing Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard as captain and stillthinks these traits were worth the extra £1.5m spent on Hendo.