The online platform which helped Robins sell Semenyo to Cherries
BRISTOL City used online transfer marketplace TransferRoom to help facilitate the sale of Antoine Semenyo to Bournemouth and calculate a fair price for the Ghana international.
A report in The Athletic has revealed the Robins took to the platform, which was founded in 2016 by Jonas Ankersen, the brother of Southampton director of football Rasmus, in the January window to make top-flight sides aware of the striker’s availability.
More than 650 clubs across 100 leagues are now signed up to the site which aims to bring greater transparency and give clubs more accurate and reliable market information in conducting business and has been at the heart of more than 3,000 deals across the world since inception.
Semenyo, pictured, joined Bournemouth on January 27 for an initial £9 million plus further appearance based add-ons taking it past the £10m mark, with City increasingly in a position of needing to sell one of their prized assets as his contract was expiring in the summer of 2024.
The sale, one of CEO Richard Gould’s final acts before departing to take up a role with the ECB, also enabled City to then sign Anis Mehmeti from Wycombe Wanderers and Harry Cornick from Luton Town. New CEO Phil Alexander is understood to have been a big influence on completing both deals on deadline day. Having turned down a bid from Nottingham Forest in the previous January window, Semenyo’s shin injury, sustained last summer while on international duty, meant expected offers from Crystal Palace and Bournemouth never materialised.
The 23-year-old made 23 Championship appearances for the Robins over the first half of the season, scoring six goals and adding three assists, and with Bournemouth’s interest remaining, and the Cherries furnished with new owner Bill Foley’s investment, there was an acceptance within the City hierarchy that the forward was likely to leave or, more pertinently, had to be sold due to his contract situation.
There had been a degree of frustration within the fanbase that the fee was a comparatively low eight figures, having seen defender Lloyd Kelly sold to the Cherries in 2019 for an initial £13.5m and Adam Webster to Brighton & Hove Albion the same summer for £20m.
However, TransferRoom also allowed Gould to evaluate what would be considered a fair market price for the former SGS pupil and having turned down two initial bids from the Premier League club eventually accepted a third.