Nottingham Forest chief executive Mark Arthur: "The chairman had informed Billy on three separate occasions that, should we get another offer for James Perch from Newcastle that was acceptable to the business of the club, then we would not stand in his way.
"Newcastle had also offered to quadruple Perch's salary and therefore, with our reluctance to offer him a new contract, it would have been wrong to stand in his way.
"When an offer came through that was acceptable to the board I phoned Billy to tell him of the offer and his response was 'that is the board's decision and so be it'."