Why Olympique de Marseille did not sign Juventus striker Amauri – Ligue 1 news
Italian international Amauri, currently on the books of Italian Serie A giants Juventus was linked with a move to French Ligue 1 side http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Olympique-de-Marseille-c40127 in the final few days of the recently closed summer transfer window.
Reports in French media suggested that Les Phoceens direction was willing to provide coach Didier Deschamps with an attacker by the end of the transfer window. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/France-c2899 international Andre Pierre-Gignac was linked with a move away from the Stade Velodrome
in order to make room for Amauri.
Gignac reportedly earns 300,000 Euros per month at Marseille and was allowed to travel to London to join English Premier League side Fulham FC in a loan deal. Marseille also wanted to take Gignac off their wage bill in order to facilitate a transfer for
Gignac.
However, the end of the transfer window saw neither of the two moves materialise and Marseille were left hoping to see Gignac hit form after his big-money move to the Rhone giants last summer.
Marseille chairman Vincent Labrune, while talking to the media finally disclosed the fine points of the Amauri transfer saga. While talking to the media, Labrune admitted that bringing in the ‘Oriundi’ from Juventus would have been unreasonable after the
club’s recent efforts to ease the burden on the wage bill.
Finally Amauri stayed at Turin while the Martigues-born Gignac was asked to come back to Canebiere from London.
“We made progress (in order to sign Amauri) but it was expensive. Fans were hoping for a new signing but we have to be financially responsible as well,” the president of the club.
Rhone’s local newspaper Le Progress reveals that the transaction of http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Amauri-c5381 could have cost Marseille around 15 million Euros. First Marseille had to pay Juventus 4 million Euros for Amauri. The Brazil-born striker was also demanding a salary of over 6.3
million Euros for his two-year contract at the French side. Adding to that, the club was supposed to make payments to the Italian international’s agent.
Though Deschamps must be gutted for not being able to sign Amauri, it seems that Marseille are better off without a striker who has scored just 12 goals in 51 Serie A games since 2009.
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