The concept of bidding and rejections is strange, don’t the respective CEO’s just pick up the phone and say “We want x player for £1M” the reply being “no thanks” surely they then just converse and negotiate until verbally agreed, then an official document is sent confirming what was agreed verbally?
I don’t get the seemingly lack of communication between the decision makers. A lot of the time these same people have been highly successful in their business life, do they just forget all this when running a football club and employ people not capable of picking up a telephone?!