Defender’s move to Loftus Road surprises Russian club.
Queens Park Rangers have been labelled “out of their minds” for signing Christopher Samba – by the club who sold him!
Samba left big spending Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala in January after QPR triggered the £12.5million release clause in his contract and agreed to meet his wage demands understood to be around £100,000 a week.
Source: Sportinglife
The former Blackburn Rovers defender was seen as the man to keep basement side QPR in the Premier League and he was handed a four-and-a-half year contract at Loftus Road for his troubles.
Anzhi accepted that Congolese international Samba wanted to return to England for family reasons after only a year in Russia, but director German Tkachenko was massively surprised struggling QPR financed the deal with their Premier League status hanging in the balance.
Speaking to Russian news site www.sports.ru, Tkachenko said: “At QPR he will earn almost as much as he did at Anzhi. In my view QPR have lost their minds. When they agreed to pay his release fee we wept. He [Samba] wept.
“Everybody says that he ran away from the club, but that’s not true. He didn’t put any pressure on the club until we received an offer from QPR for £12.5million, the amount required by his contract.”
He added: “It was linked to the threat that he would lose contact with his children. That was a big blow. He was a guy who loved all of us. And besides, he is a very good defender. I think he is one of the top five defenders currently playing in Europe.”
Anzhi, however, are not ruling out a return to Russian for Samba who they would consider resigning if QPR were relegated from the Premier League in May.
Tkachenko said: “If we are successful and playing in the Champions League, I dream that Samba will become an Anzhi player again.”