Swindon chairman Fitton hits out at Pompey for claims over £1million Austin bid

7:30am Wednesday 8th September 2010

By Anthony Marshall

TOWN chairman Andrew Fitton has hit out at Andrew Andronikou’s claims that Portsmouth had a £1million bid for Charlie Austin turned down on transfer deadline day.

The former County Ground administrator is now overseeing cash-strapped Pompey’s finances and a takeover at Fratton Park by Hong Kong-based businessman Balram Chainrai is believed to be just days away.

As revealed by the Advertiser last week, the Championship side enquired about signing Swindon’s star striker Austin and proposed a fee, which was flatly rejected, but no formal offer was ever made.

However, Andronikou went on record yesterday as saying: “The owners put in a £1million bid for Charlie Austin from Swindon and that was turned down.

“They want to bring some young players into the club and had identified him as a quality player.”

And those claims angered Fitton, who told the Advertiser he has evidence to back up the fact that no bid was received and that the mentioned price was well below that claimed by Andronikou.

“I can absolutely categorically deny that they (Portsmouth) put in a bid of £1million for Charlie Austin,” said Fitton.

“And I am appalled at them putting out a story saying that. They mentioned a figure but it didn’t reach £1million, and I have got the text to prove it.

“I’m not going to say who the text is from but it proves what that figure was and I could really embarrass them with that.

“But I won’t. We live in a professional world, so all I am prepared to say is that Portsmouth did not put in a bid for Charlie Austin, let alone one for £1million.”

Fitton went on to echo the comments made by Swindon manager Danny Wilson last week, regarding clubs making transfer targets public knowledge.

He said: “Danny touched on it the other day and has my full backing on this - the notion of putting stories out into the press to unsettle players has to stop. It is amateurish.”

Last night Paul Caddis captained Scotland Under 21s as they secured a place in the European Championship play-offs.

Caddis helped Scotland secure their play-off place as the Scots beat Austria 2-1 thanks to Chris Maguire’s late winner.

Meanwhile Billy Bodin’s Wales Under 21s missed out on a play-off place after losing 1-0 against Italy.