No wonder it was undisclosed

One of Adam Pearson's first acts as returning chairman has been to reveal exactly how much money Hull City got when Michael Turner was sold to Sunderland at the end of August.

Once the sell-on fees to Charlton Athletic and Brentford were passed to those clubs, City ended up with £2.8 million.

That's scandalous. No wonder Paul Duffen chose not to say anything.

This was a player who City actively touted around over the summer, with Liverpool supposedly put off because they didn't have the £12 million that the Tigers were demanding.

It seemed quite clear. Hand over a dozen big ones and Turner's yours. Anything less and he goes nowhere.

Except nobody did. Liverpool were notoriously short of transfer funds once they'd shelled out crazy money for a right back. Manchester City chased Joleon Lescott for twice Turner's valuation simply because they could. In our naivety, we thought that it was a ploy by the club to ward off the interested parties as they wanted Turner to stay.

But no. We get to the last week of August and, knowing the club needs an injection of funds urgently, a deal is struck with Sunderland.

It was evident that the reason the fee was undisclosed, despite a definite public valuation stapled to Turner's forehead over preceding months, was because the club knew that the fans would be outraged if the true recompense for losing the services of the one player who would do more to keep us in the Premier League was revealed.

At least while it was undisclosed, speculation in the bars and concourses was not backed up by evidence and the supporters could solely be angry at the decision to sell, not also at the derisory compensation given to the club in return. For as long as the fans thought there might be a whopping £12 million or so in the current account it was easier, though not easy, to placate them.

Anyway, the club's sneaky tactics have backfired. With £12 million valuations published and repeated everywhere but no concrete proof of Sunderland's final outlay, Charlton and Brentford have complained that they suspect they have been severely undercut in the deal and so the Premier League has launched an inquiry. Out of this, Pearson's in-built desire for candour and transparency, a trait so beloved of him during his first spell at the helm, has made the figures public at last.

Duffen should be relieved he is out of the picture. Had the inquiry been launched under his watch, then someone else would have revealed the figures if he hadn't. Then there would have been merry hell to pay. There still is, but he's avoided it. I dread to think what the Tiger Nation's reaction would have been had Duffen still been at the club by the time of this weekend's game against Stoke. He probably saw it coming and used it as a partial reason to bale out.

And it still rankles, more than ever now, that he tried to blame the entire transaction on Turner's alleged itchy feet. Turner was happy to be ours, an all-time hero of Hull City. Then his paymasters declared they would prefer it if he was someone else's.

So it mirrors Richard Jobson's departure 19 years ago even more than we feared. Tall, blonde, elegant, match-saving centre back with numerous suitors is valued at a huge fee by his club and is sold, early in the season, for a fraction of it. Back in August 1990, we wanted more than a million for Jobson, apparently, and let him go to Oldham Athletic for £460,000. We feared, nay expected, relegation after the sale went through and duly went down quite horribly. That's the only difference - so far - between what happened then and what has happened now. But come May, don't be surprised (but do be furious) if history is repeated in its entirety.