Gary Mackay-Steven has asked for more time to consider a potential move to New York City.
Aberdeen were approached last week by the MLS club with a view to signing Mackay-Steven, whose deal runs out in the summer, on a pre-contract.
The offer surfaced while the Dons were out in Dubai and at the time, Mackay-Steven had only just been made aware of the interest. New York had emailed the club and notified them of their intention to put a proposal to the 28-year-old.
Manager Derek McInnes said: “I spoke with Gary yesterday and he said he wants to find out a bit more about the New York City offer. It would be a change in his life and he has to weigh everything up and take his time with that. He’s not asked to go across, unless he does that in the international break. But he’s never mentioned that. He just wants to weigh it all up and see.
“That’s an offer that is real and they’ve contacted us and I’m sure Gary will want to look at that a bit more closely and see if it’s for him or not but he’s still not told us that we’re not under consideration. Until he tells us that, we live in hope. He’s a clever boy and he’s not your typical footballer. He’ll be weighing everything up and it’ll not just be the club or the league or the contract. It’ll be the manager and everything.”
Offers have been made to both Thurso-born Mackay-Steven, who joined Aberdeen in the summer of 2017, and club captain Graeme Shinnie. With both players in the final six months of their deal, they are free to speak to other clubs under freedom of contract. McInnes indicated he wanted responses from the pair this month, to allow him to plan for the summer.
He added: “It helps in terms of the planning. We’ve got contract offers there for both lads and we would like to know if the money is not going to them and they’re not going to take them up, then how we utilise that and strengthen the squad for next season. But that’s par for the course for every manager.”
Meanwhile, McInnes attended the meeting with Scottish football officials last night at McDiarmid Park. Chaired by Scottish FA chief executive Ian Maxwell, the summit was to address recent high-profile controversies involving match referees in Scottish football, with the SFA’s compliance officer Clare Whyte also in attendance.
The Dons have raised questions about the SFA’s disciplinary process this season, with Mikey Devlin shown a controversial red card against Kilmarnock that was not overturned and Scott McKenna being retrospectively banned for a challenge on Celtic’s Odsonne Edouard. Dating back to the end of last season, they also had gripes with how Shay Logan’s dismissal against Celtic was dealt with.