We were unlucky. His agent put in a standard clause to protect him in case something really too lucrative to turn down came up. We were in no position to argue with a player who held all the aces because he was willing to sign for us for substantially less than his market worth because he liked it here. I would guess Hayes thought the chance of the clause being invoked by a club he wanted to go to was minimal. He obviously wasn't keen to go to the Championship or League One for more a bit more money or he wouldn't have signed the contract here. He totally expected to see out his contract here.
But Rogers, somewhat surprisingly, fancied him as a cheap pool player. An Irish Catholic was never going to be able to turn down a huge pay hike and a chance to play in the Champion's League and pick up winner's medals at the club he supported as a kid.
What played out was an unlikely scenario but AFC did pretty well out of it, getting a fee for a player who could have let his contract run down and gone for free. It wasn't all bad news by any means.