Macclesfield Reject Imps' Approach

12th June 2009

Lincoln City's hopes of signing Macclesfield Town's Gareth Evans are in jeopardy today.

The Imps have been linked with Evans all this week, but today, it was made formal with the news that Macclesfield have rejected Lincoln's bid for the striker.

Although Evans is out of contract at Macclesfield, any club who wishes to sign him must pay compensation to Macclesfield as Evans is under the age of 24, plus Macclesfield have offered him a new contract. Had neither of those things happened then Evans would be free to leave The Silkmen under the Bosman Ruling.

Macclesfield boss Keith Alexander confirmed to BBC Radio Lincolnshire: "Gareth's a good player and I'm not surprised that Lincoln are interested but we want a fee and they don't want to pay one so there's nothing doing."

Lincoln are believed to have offered an appearance related compensation package, which Macclesfield have rejected as they want a lump sum upfront.

Even though Macclesfield have rejected Lincoln's bid, this does not mean that the deal is dead. Lincoln have a couple of options: a) Offer Macclesfield a lump sum or b) agree terms with Evans and let a tribunal set the fee. Option b is what happened last season when Lincoln agreed terms to sign Janos Kovacs from Chesterfield even though Chesterfield rejected Lincoln's compensation offer.

21-year-old Evans was signed by Macclesfield in the summer of 2007 and made 89 appearances including a third as a substitute, scoring 20 goals.

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