we could have sold Mutu for much more money
Maybe we could sell him for more, but certainly not for much more.
We sold him for 8m+Bojinov on loan. As you know, teams pay for the loan deals. Genoa payed us 1m eur to have Criscito on loan for the next season. Bojinov was much better than Criscito when we got him. He was only 20 but he already had around 100 matches and 24 goals scored in serie A. So, instead of getting 9.5/10m eur for Mutu, we went for 8m+a very talented player on loan, with an option to buy (maybe we'd have bought him if Deschamps gave him a chance to prove himself?).
As for Mutu's market price.... how much do you think it was ? He had an awful season with Chelsea, then he spent the next season banned because he failed a drugs test and the next year he hardly played 1/3 of the matches and, even more, he played as a right midfielder and couldn't prove himself at all.
I doubt anyone was willing to pay big money for Mutu back then.
And i don't remember a vast interest from foreign teams or from the richer Italian teams. Fiorentina were the only ones who wanted him.
Now our directors say that perhaps it was a mistake to sell him. But they're also looking from today's perspective. Back then it was Mutu or Trezeguet. Both had high wages, both were attackers. We had Del Piero for the attack also. At a time when we had to think about paying less money for wages we simply couldn't keep 1 attacker of high profile on the bench and pay 5 mil only for his wages. We decided to do everything to keep Trezeguet instead. If you remember, Trez wanted to leave. Both he and Camo wanted to leave but we didn't let them go. Unfortunately, in order to keep Trez we had to sell Mutu, who anyway, as you said, wanted nothing else but to be sold.
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