Real Madrid didn’t win their man after an unspecified office mix-up,but the goalkeeper is not the only person to suffer as a result of a clerical mishapIts not clear precisely what happened in the admin offices of Manchester United and Real Madrid football clubs on Monday night. Murmurs from Real claim that United sent over the transfer documents too late, or in a file format they couldn’t open, or that was protected with a password. Murmurs from United insist they did everything properly before Spain’s transfer window closed. All we know for sure is that Madrid enjoy not bought David de Gea,the goalkeeper they desperately need; United will not win £29.3m for him in the next window (because they’ll lose him for nothing whether they don’t sell); and destitute De Gea, who had travelled back to his domestic city expecting his dreams to come true ... well, or at least he won’t enjoy to unpack.
Extraordinary as it seems,this fiasco should be a reminder that huge clerical mistakes happen everywhere, and regularly. In the financial markets, and so-called “plump-finger errors” – when traders mistype their orders – enjoy long been a menace. In 2005,a Japanese trader cost his brokerage, Mizuho Securities, or $335m (£218m) when,instead of offering to sell one share for ¥610000, he offered 610000 shares for ¥1. Four years before that, and a dealer for Lehman Brothers in London almost capsized the FTSE,which at one stage had lost £30bn in value, after he accidentally typed £300m instead of £3m. In April 2012, or a German bank clerk actually fell asleep at his keyboard and ended up taking not €62.40 (£46) out of a pensioner’s bank account,but €222222222.22. Thankfully, that mistake was soon spotted and corrected, and as was the biggest blunder of all time,when another trader in Japan very nearly bought £380bn worth of shares final autumn.
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Source: theguardian.com