The transfer of Benjani Mwaruwari from Portsmouth to Manchester City, which was completed yesterday, stalled at the deadline last Thursday because the player fell asleep at the airport on his way to Manchester, according to Peter Storrie, the Portsmouth chief executive.

City were unable to complete the player’s medical and send in all the required paperwork before the midnight deadline after the Zimbabwe forward failed to arrive at Manchester airport until 10.30pm. “In his own inevitable, wonderful way – and we all love Benji so much - he falls asleep at the airport and misses two planes,” Storrie said. “You couldn’t write the script. The next plane at 7 o’clock got cancelled and the 8.30 was delayed. It just made the whole situation a fiasco.”

Concerns about the player’s knee mean that Portsmouth will receive an initial £3.87 million. There will be further payments if the player makes 75 senior starts for City, with the deal worth a potential £7.6 million. Benjani has signed a 2½year contract.

“I would like to thank Portsmouth Football Club, the Premier League and the Football Association for their help, understanding and assistance in enabling this transfer to be completed to the satisfaction of all concerned,” Alistair Mackintosh, the City chief executive, said. “In particular, I would like to thank Peter Storrie, of Portsmouth, and Sir David Richards, of the Premier League, for their hard work and pragmatism.”

With Portsmouth initially receiving only about half the fee originally agreed, Alexandre Gaydamak, the club’s owner, may be required to extend the £24 million loan facility that was arranged last summer with Standard Bank. Storrie confirmed that the sale of Benjani was intended to fund the signing of Jermain Defoe from Tottenham Hotspur for an almost identical fee. Defoe is expected to sign a 4½-year contract this week after the England forward joined on loan minutes before the deadline. “The only way we were going to do this deal was one in, one out,” he said. “We couldn’tafford Defoe without selling Benjani.”

Storrie revealed that City made the initial contact a week ago, while Portsmouth were at Old Trafford for their Barclays Premier League match against Manchester United. “There was an inquiry about Benjani, but we weren’t going to let it happen unless we could get someone of the quality of Defoe,” he said. However, Daniel Levy, the Tottenham chairman, was in the United States and the time difference did not help to facilitate events even before Benjani dozed off in the departure lounge.

"I spoke to Daniel and said, "Let's do it as a loan because you only need to put two pieces of paper through and we’ll put the other documents through this week,’ ” Storrie said. “I don’t know why Man City didn’t do the same. I’ve been in the game a long while, so I know how to do these things very quickly and get them through when you’re on deadlines – when you’ve Harry [Redknapp, the manager] on your back, sitting next to you saying, ‘Put it through, Peter, put it through.’ ”

Storrie denied being secretive about Defoe not signing initially on a permanent basis. “I’ve no idea what our media put out,” he said. “I was too busy getting the deals done and then sorting out the mess with Man City on Friday. I never spoke to anybody about it.”

And he sidestepped an invitation to deny outright that Gaydamak is ready to accept offers for the club, as reported in The Times last week. “Look at what we’ve just spent in the transfer window,” Storrie said. “Would he be going to do that if he was going to sell the club?”