Golden Soft Sombrero Moment with Bernie Mandic

Four Diegos Profile:               

Former IMG Football Consultant and very former good friend of Leeds United. Has looked after Harry Kewell’s affairs throughout his career but don’t call him a player agent because he is very definitely not that.

Four Diegos Verdict:              

Any friend of Harry’s is a friend of the Diegos…by the way Bernie where’s our up close and personal ‘in the spa with the Diegos’ exclusive with Harry??

We’ve been saving hard you know and our Ray Martin extreme makeover has worked a treat.

Mandic the priest, bouncer and social worker…

Diegos: “One of your roles as Football operations manager at IMG is to look after a couple of young Aussie soccer stars - Celtic's Mark Viduka and Leeds United’s Harry Kewell.

It's a job that seemingly requires you to alternate between being a priest, a hard line negotiator, a social worker, a bouncer and most importantly a number cruncher.

As an Aussie what's it like representing two of the biggest stars in the world's biggest game?”

Mandic: “It’s certainly a field which is not as easy as people like to think it is.

You are dealing with some of the big hitters around the world in club agents or clubs themselves.

It’s something that I wouldn’t want to give up for the world because it pits you against the best opposition around so as an Aussie it’s nice to be there because most of the Aussie players are represented by foreigners.

I guess in this regard I’m one of the rare exceptions when it comes to our big stars.”

Soft Sombrero Moment 2000

Mandic on Jerry McGuire and soccer…

Diegos: “Bernie is it anything like the world of Jerry McGuire?”

Mandic: “I guess in many respects it is given that when there is a lot of money involved you have a lot of people who want a piece of that money.

In this climate standard civility goes out the window.

People basically use every trick known to mankind to undermine each other and that unfortunately is the sad fact of big sport.

If anything when it comes to soccer Jerry McGuire paints a quite rosy picture.”

Diegos: “What sorts of nasty things happen?”

Mandic: “The recent Josip Skoko deal taking him from Croatia to Genk in Belgium was a perfect example where after the deal was done the Genk club was approached by five different agents wanting some sort of commission for having apparently introduced the club to Josip; having introduced Josip to the club; having introduced Hajduk Split to Josip; having introduced Josip future mother in law to his parents etc etc.

These were really outrageous claims and force us to explain to the Genk club that we are in fact Josip only representatives.

Similar situations have emerged with Mark (Viduka).

The media is saying that Mark has basically entered into contractual negotiations with every major club in the world. Unfortunately it’s all news to me and it’s all news to Mark.

There are a few Internet sites that specialize in rumour and a lot of these stories emanate from these sites.”

Soft Sombrero Moment 2000

Mandic on our Harry…

Diegos: “Every Monday night on SBS's English soccer program we witness Harry Kewell's undoubted world class.

This week England star, Paul Ince paid Harry the biggest accolade that can be bestowed on anyone in the English game by saying that he was going to vote for Harry in the PFA Player of the year awards, effectively declaring Harry the best player in England from a fellow professional's point of view.

This is an exciting prospect for all Australians.

 Can you give us some idea of how good and how big Harry is in England?”

Mandic: “It’s no secret that Leeds has received numerous approaches by some of the leading agents and or world clubs.

The latest rumours involve the likes of AC Milan, Inter Milan, Athletico Madrid, and these are correct. This illustrates how big the kid is.

He is 21 years of age and he just seems to go from strength to strength.

Legends like Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan, Graham Taylor, George Graham and Terry Venables have all said that Harry would be playing in the first eleven for England now if he weren’t an Aussie.

I think this demonstrates that he not only has arrived but that he is well and truly there.

He is double or tripled man-marked every game. He has knocked back massive offers from these clubs the latest believe it or not is that Leeds is not going to sell unless someone offers fifty million pounds and that would be a world record transfer.” 

Soft Sombrero Moment 2000

Bernie does Harry want to play for us??

Diegos: “The biggest concern for passionate Aussie soccer fans is whether our world stars want to in fact play for the Socceroos.

Harry of course, is the major player in the Club versus Country - 'He’s mine all mine' love triangle that also includes Leeds United and Soccer Australia.

Does Harry want to play for Australia and if he does, when in the lead up to the Olympics and the next World Cup will he be available? Would he prefer to play for England?”

Mandic: “I don’t think it’s as simple as that.

Initially Harry’s biggest problem was not being able to make himself available for matches played in Australia. It was never a question of not wanting to play for Australia. He made that decision early on and he is proud of that decision.

On whether he would prefer to slip on an English shirt or not, I think that if he wasn’t chosen for Australia eventually he would’ve been called up for England.

I think everybody wants to play for a national team and Harry has never expressed to me his desire to play for England. I think he is flattered that people say that he would walk into the team given the calibre of players they have but his biggest problem has been that most of the fixtures are in Australia.

Farina has changed this and Harry has said that he is available for the matches based in Europe. The only thing that has stopped him has been injury and fatigue.

He definitely wants to play and now he has a coach like Frank Farina who can analyze the problem appropriately and make a decision whether he is right to play of not.”

Soft Sombrero Moment 2000