| While he was an emerging talent at West Brom, Hughes was jailed for causing death by dangerous driving in 2004 and has been trying to rebuild his career at Boundary Park since his release last year.
Having had a successful season there, he has been linked with a number of clubs, but United boss Craig Levein made it clear today he was not attempting to bring the 32-year-old to Tannadice.
“What has happened here is that an agent called about Lee Hughes and told me he was out of contract,” said Craig today.
“I did a wee bit of research, however, and found out he still had a year of his contract to run, so I did not even make an enquiry.
“Oldham would be wanting quite a bit of money for him and, as we are still not exactly flavour of the month with them, I couldn’t see them wanting to do business with us anyway.”
The Latics dislike of United stems from last summer and the Chris Porter transfer saga.
Although Porter ended up going to Motherwell, it was United’s interest that unveiled the fact that, under FIFA rules, the £1 million-rated striker could head to Scotland for free.
While it was the world ruling body and not United or Motherwell, who effectively cost Oldham a seven-figure sum, the sense of injustice down there lingers on.
Returning to Hughes, Craig stressed it was football matters that dictated no move would be made.
“If he’d been out of contract, I would have been interested because he is a good player. What happened in the past was extremely unfortunate, but he has served his penalty and should be allowed to move on.” |
