Former Sheffield Wednesday manager Trevor Francis has revealed how the Owls lost out to Leeds United in the hunt for Eric Cantona.
The France star joined the Whites on February 6, 1992 from Nimes for a fee of around just £900,000, winning the final First Division title before it was replaced by the Premier League later that year.
He remained at the club until the summer, when he joined Manchester United and went on to win four Premier League titles and three FA Cups, establishing himself as a legend at Old Trafford.
However, his career path could have been a lot different as Wednesday were the first club to bring him to England and Francis has recounted the story.
“He was invited over and I agreed we would do Michel Platini a favour as he was the French national team manager. Eric had retired and he wanted to get him back into the fold,” he told talkSPORT in 2019.
“I said he’s welcome to come over to Sheffield, we’re not going to be into any expenses, you can pay for the flights, hotels and he is here for three days.
“That was the agreement, never any suggestion that I would be interested in signing him. He came for two days in terribly poor conditions, snow, we couldn’t get on the training field and we trained indoors.
“I said to him and his entourage, he had a huge entourage with him, I’d like him to stay here for one more day and they regarded that as an insult, said he’s not on trial.
“At that moment, Howard Wilkinson was at Leeds and wanted to take him. So, with pleasure, he went off to Leeds.”
However, Francis also admitted that the Owls were not in a position where they could sign the striker who went on to earn 45 caps for France.
“At Leeds, it was okay. At Manchester United, it was absolutely fantastic, but I had my group of three or four strikers at Sheffield Wednesday, we'd just come up from the second division and where he was in finances, we were never in the ball park.”
