New Zealand World Cup star Shane Smeltz has officially re-joined his Gold Coast United team-mates after his transfer deal with Chinese Super League club Shandong Luneng collapsed due to personal reasons.
Smeltz spent four days in China last week visiting the clubs facilities in Jinan, but contrary to recent reports in the press the Hyundai A-league’s most prolific goal scorer says there wasn’t an issue with either Shandong or the city.
When quizzed on Friday about what went wrong, Smeltz remained tight-lipped, however there were indications that more serious issues could arise from the bungled transfer.
“I want to make it clear there is no issue with the Shandong Football Club they were everything I expected,” the 28-year-old said.
“They have a very professional team so there’s no issue with the team, China or the city.”
“I know these things have been made out to be as if I wasn’t happy with China but that’s not the case.”
“There were personal problems and issues and they weren’t resolved so that’s why I’m back here.”
“It’s not a very comfortable situation to be in for myself or my family, but hopefully it’s resolved now and we can move on.”
With the ink still drying on the deal, debate has been raised over who controlled Smeltz’s services and the possibility of a global tug-of-war taking place, but it seems United were saved by the nature of international business.
As the club waited to receive funds for Smeltz’s transfer, Gold Coast followed standard procedure and held off on issuing Shandong with a formal International Transfer Certificate.
This proved to be the saving grace for United as their key marksman’s services hadn’t officially been handed over to Shandong allowing the club to void the deal when things went astray.
Confirming that Shandong was not pursing the club for any compensation, United’s CEO Clive Mensik said Gold Coast remained the controlling party in the deal and had the full support and backing of FFA.
“As far as we are concerned the matter has been dealt with and we are in correspondence with the Chinese club Shandong,” Mensik said.
“We can’t go into details obviously because it’s commercial in confidence and Shane is on the same sort of restrictions with the matters currently being undertaken.”
“As far as the club is concerned Shane is a Gold Coast player and he will be playing with the Gold Coast.”
Now happy to be back to the glitter strip with family and friends, Smeltz said his attention will focus on getting things right on the pitch with a pre-season friendly against North Queensland Fury scheduled to take place this Sunday.
“I’m really looking forward to getting out there now. I’m hungry and I want to do what I know I can do best,” he said.
“I’ve been ticking over and I feel quite fresh from the World Cup, we’ll wait and see how I go and how I get back into the swing of things.”
