Alex Hayes, the vice-president of the French club, claimed the Black Cats tried to change the terms of the deal after the defender had travelled to England to finalise the move
Lorient vice-president Alex Hayes has described
Sunderland's conduct as "scandalous" after Lamine Kone's move to the Stadium of Light collapsed.
Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce confirmed on Thursday the club would not be pursuing a deal for the Ivory Coast international after he had travelled to England to discuss personal terms and undergo a medical.
Allardyce said on Thursday: "The Kone deal has broken down. It's nothing to do with a medical or anything like that, the negotiations just broke down and it didn't happen."
Hayes took a dim view of the situation and claimed Sunderland had tried to change the terms of their offer.
"It's quite scandalous," he told Le Telegramme .
"We gave Sunderland our consent last Tuesday. Lamine left the next day to have contract talks but the player warned us there were problems in negotiating his contract.
"Because of the holidays it dragged out until Monday. They [Sunderland] tried to change the deal.
"Lamine called me to ask if he could return to Lorient and I told him 'with great pleasure'."
Kone's trip to England meant he missed Lorient's Coupe de France clash with Tours, while he is unlikely to play in the Ligue 1 fixture against Rennes this weekend.
"Our defensive pillar was lost for the cup tie and the Rennes derby for nothing," Hayes added.
"Meanwhile Sunderland have negotiated [to buy] a player from Bayern Munich (Jan Kirchhoff).
No comments:
Post a Comment