True in what sense?
The way I see it happening is that we had a deal with him based on reasonable figures, both fee, commission and wage. He was on the long list of players we have for the LB spot and all these factors being in line with our valuation of him meant that we greenlit the deal. He was about to board a plane to come sign the contract at Milan, but his agent forced the issue and asked Fenerbahce to raise their bid, specifically the commission which apparently shot up to 3m, way over the line that Furlani was comfortable with. We folded and the player boarded the plane to Turkey.
That seems like the most reasonable explanation of what happened. We were most definitely interested and had an offer on the table, there's probably no denying that. He would have been a good moneyball risk at the agreed figures, but things went out of hand in the end. It happens. What we do know is that we always have a long list of options, but hopefully we don't end too far down the list and for it to be too late in preseason.
I would have liked to sign Brown, he honestly seemed like a good deal, even with the commission. Sometimes those principles bite us in the ass, for example with Thuram and Zirkzee. Hopefully they learn a lesson and close the Vlahovic deal even if the commissions are crazy. Sometimes to you need to make some exceptions.