Leroy Fer privately intervened when he heard Daniel James was headed to Leeds United at the end of the January window, according to the Guardian.
The newspaper claim in a feature on Swansea City that captain Fer was “dismayed” and “frustrated” at the prospect of the club cashing in on rising star James to a rival Championship side.
The Guardian report the central midfielder “telephoned Swansea’s American owners, Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, to ask what was going on”.
OPINION
Kaplan and Levien are widely despised by the Swansea fanbase for presiding over a stark decline of the club who were once held up as a model Premier League operation. Drastic cost-cutting has followed relegation from the top flight and only the deadline-day actions of Huw Jenkins, who resigned as chairman shortly afterwards, prevented James joining Leeds on loan on 31 January. A deal had been agreed for United to take the player until the end of the season for a reported £1.5million loan fee and then stump up a further £7million to make it permanent if they were promoted at the end of the season. Like many Swans fans, Fer struggled to see the immediate benefit for his own club and their own promotion hopes. Graham Potter is already managing the fourth-youngest side in the entire English professional game, and losing a prize asset to a rival just didn’t make sense to Fer and so many of those at the Welsh outfit. Leeds’ bid to land James was blocked by multiple political hurdles, it seems.