Milan Misun, Swindon Town and the transfer that never was

Whilst the two sides look to find a new gear at half-time, two new faces are paraded around the pitch. The first is the first winner of Samsung’s Win A Pro Contract competition, Jordan Pavett. Alongside him is a man who just two years ago was attracting interest from AC Milan before joining Celtic. Milan Misun.

Under fire manager Danny Wilson is looking for something to kickstart a Swindon side that have won just twice in the last two months and just yesterday lost their talisman in Charlie Austin.

Both national and regional outlets announced that Misun had joined from Celtic for an undisclosed fee, a deal which was hoped would make up for the loss of breakout star Sean Morrison to Reading earlier in the month. There was only one problem with this plan, Swindon never signed Misun…

The two players who those behind the scenes hoped might inspire some hope among supporters during another dour performance would never play a single second for the club.

“I had a conversation with some of the board members very early in the January,” says former Swindon Town chairman Andrew Fitton, “And I said that if we are not careful, this club is going to get relegated. I was told in those classic words that have been used so many times in football ‘this squad is too good to get relegated.’ I remember saying ‘No squad is too good to get relegated.’”

That squad was not in a good place as 2010 became 2011. A team that was built to challenge at the top end of the table was hovering precariously on the edge of the relegation zone.

“It [the dressing room] is definitely cracking around that time,” said goalkeeper Phil Smith, “The pressure is on, and things aren’t really going as well as they should. It wasn’t divisive where people were being horrible to each other, it just definitely wasn’t a communal feeling in the dressing room. It didn’t feel like everyone was together as it had been before. There were a few people, me included, who were not happy with the way that they were playing themselves. Results were going against us which leads to its own pressure. There were arguments in the dressing room and things like that between players and managers. Just all things like that creeping in.”

Phil Smith during the 2010/11 season (Image: Dave Evans)

After being one Wembley bobble away from promotion to the Championship six months ago, Swindon were in serious trouble of sleepwalking down into League Two.

“A lot of what happens at a club is about the psychology of the dressing room, perhaps we all underestimate that,” said Fitton, “It is a big issue and Danny’s assistant [Peter Shirtliff] admitted when we let Danny go that they knew they’d had a problem in the dressing room in the September and they had done nothing about it.

“[At that time] I think we did have confidence in Danny, he’s a nice, very honourable, and very able manager. I think he had the board’s confidence, but I don’t think we were asking the right questions or maybe he wasn’t volunteering that he had this problem in the dressing room.”

With a dressing room sucked dry of morale and also of quality players following a difficult January, which had seen Morrison and Austin head to the Championship, Town turned to Misun in their hour of need. A defender who had been highly rated at Celtic after they fought off interest from AC Milan and FC Copenhagen to secure his signature in 2008, but he had encountered injury problems at Celtic Park.

Misun joined the club, was unveiled at the County Ground, was added to the squad list on the programme, and looked ready to help Swindon try and escape relegation, in spite of the cruciate ligament damage that had prevented him from playing during the first half of the season.

“The January transfer window is drawing to a close but from behind the curtain comes Milan Misun, previously with Celtic FC,” Chief Executive Nick Watkins wrote in the programme. “Welcome Milan and your defensive qualities are going to be much in demand I am sure as we enter the second phase of the season.”

Misun was profiled ahead of the game with Rochdale (Image: Swindon Town)

Misun spoke to the club’s programme ahead of Town playing Rochdale and said: “I am very determined to do well at Swindon. This is a very good chance for me because League One is a very good standard of football and I really want to get in the side and play as many games as I can. I really enjoyed it [being unveiled], although I was very nervous. The supporters were very good to me, and I also threw my shirt into the crowd. I want to make my debut for Swindon very soon and I hope that it’s not too long before I can be playing for Swindon.”

Unfortunately, it was very long. Over 4,500 days and counting as Misun continues to await that elusive debut. These were the only words anyone outside of the County Ground ever heard from the defender. It was reported by the Adver that he had sustained an injury during his first week of training and never ended up making a squad during the six months he was thought to be a Swindon player.

Smith is not even sure if he met the Czechian defender, “When you said he got injured in his first week, that kind of rings a bell, although when I looked at his photo, I didn’t recognize him at all. Or maybe I did see him and then he got injured and he never came in again.”

Misun during his time with Celtic (Image: Adver archive)

Misun had a clause in his Celtic contract which had to be activated by late January, which ended up overriding one concern about the transfer which the club had been told about Misun, “he has got real potential, he has had this injury problem but once that is fixed, he will be a top player.”

The player’s physical health was not the only thing being destroyed, as Fitton revealed that in signing Misun, the club’s relationship with Celtic became strained.

“I had worked very hard on the relationship with Celtic, which is why we brought in players on loan from Celtic and we had signed Paul Caddis and Simon Ferry. We even had conversations about them taking Charlie [Austin], because he would have been a perfect Celtic player. They had helped us a great deal on things like the signing of Paul Caddis, he was an incredible catch. At the time I was umming and ahing about it and Peter [Lawwell, former Chief Executive at Celtic] said ‘You need to take this lad.’

“As I remember there was an escape clause in his [Misun’s] contract and they had to exercise their option by that day, and I don’t think they were impressed when we picked him up. There weren’t any heated phone calls, but I think Peter probably felt we had been a little bit sharp just waiting for him, instead of coming and talking to them.”

Fitton said that through a combination of the club’s strong relationship with Celtic and the recommendation of an agent with strong links to Eastern Europe, it was decided that Misun was the man they needed. Jeremy Wray was particularly adamant about signing the Czech defender.

“I found an email where we are questioning the deal and Nick Watkins said that Jeremy feels morally obligated to stand by this deal. The email goes back that you have to admire that he feels obligated and that is why the deal went through when it did.”

Misun was no longer listed as being part of the squad in April (Image: Swindon Town)

However, despite that ordeal and him having been paraded on the pitch and added to the squad list, six home games later Misun was suddenly no longer listed as being part of the squad against Notts County on 23rd April. Wray would then say to the Adver on the 31st May that “he has never been under contract at the club. His situation is in limbo.”

So, what happened? To use Fitton’s own words: “It would be surprising if you presented somebody on a pitch who hadn’t signed a contract. It would just be stupid, frankly.” Times have taught us never to rule out the possibility of a Swindon ownership being stupid, but how can you sign a player who never signed a contract?

Smith said that a player being with a club before a contract is formally signed would not be uncommon. “What can happen is a player can come in and start training before the deal is actually signed, agreed, or the paperwork isn’t done. They start training and something happens before the paperwork is done and they get pulled.”

Whilst this would explain his training with the squad, it would not explain Misun being listed as being part of the squad for three months. What happened during that time to go from a very public announcement of his signing to a one-line explanation buried in an article in May that he hadn’t?

Given his history and the reporting at the time, is it possible Town realised at a certain point that his injury was so severe that the two parties agreed to part ways? It doesn’t seem like something that Misun would agree to, surely?

Former Swindon Town chairman Andrew Fitton (Image: Dave Evans)

“There is some correspondence,” Fitton said, “which says ‘be careful here because there is evidence that his knee is worse than we thought it was.’ He obviously wasn’t registered because there is an email from February which basically says: ‘Do we want to go ahead with this player?’

“There was a conversation going on with the agent saying how much it is going to cost for his medical bills. In March, there is some correspondence between me and the agent which says ‘I think we both need to be realistic that if this matter is not resolved at this time then Milan is not staying at Swindon Town.’”

It still feels like there is a missing link, what person would willingly walk away from a contract until July 2013? It is also more likely that Wray would say this was the case, rather than attempt to use a Men In Black mind eraser to make everyone forget that they had seen Misun holding the shirt with their own two eyes.

Misun and Pavett at their unveiling (Image: Swindon Town)

The answer, however, might not even be as exciting as an injury suffered behind the walls of a training ground. The almost ludicrously glamorous FA Rule C.1.(b).(iii) appears to have been the main culprit behind the mystery of the signing that never was.

The contract was signed, and the paperwork finished, but it was the next phase of checks that meant Misun could never pull on a red shirt. The concept of third-party ownership was made famous by West Ham United in 2006, much to the detriment of Sheffield United, with the signings of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, whose economic rights were owned by companies represented by their agent Kia Joorabchian.

On the back of this, regulations came in to block the third-party ownership of players in England in July 2009, which seems to be the Misun piece of this puzzle.

“The club were happy to sign him, but we could not register him.” Fitton said, “He may have signed a contract but that would have been subject to his registration. The FA identified a problem with the paperwork.”

The ink had gone onto the paper to finalise the deal, but the FA handed Swindon a bottle of Tippex and said that he couldn’t be registered until some things were sorted out.

“The FA seemed to have a problem as there are different rules in different countries.” Fitton continued, “If his agent in Eastern Europe had rights to the player, then the FA would say we don’t allow this and would suddenly say we can’t do this.”

This issue was never solved and the Czechia youth international, who could have been playing at San Siro, would never get the chance to show if he could be the saviour of the County Ground. After walking off the pitch that day against Exeter, hoping to be playing in front of those fans soon, Misun would never come back out of that tunnel.

With Morrison and Austin gone and their replacements Misun and Elliott Benyon leaving a fair amount of room spare in the shoes they had left behind; a disappointing season became a catastrophic one. After finishing seven points from safety and below a Plymouth Argyle side that had been deducted ten points, Town were back in the fourth tier.