Roma director Monchi says his club are considering legal action over their failed Malcom transfer pursuit as he ended up signing for Barcelona today.
The Italian giants tweeted yesterday that an agreement was in place for them to land the Brazilian starlet from Bordeaux, but they were left red-faced this afternoon as he was announced as a Barca player after an unexpected late twist.
MORE: Barcelona announcing Malcom transfer has a lot of Manchester United fans making the same prediction
Monchi has apologised to Roma fans over the embarrassing nature of failing to get this deal done, but also hit back at the player by saying they don’t want anyone who doesn’t want to play for them and that they can find someone just as good, if not better.
Monchi is also unsure about some of the dealings with Bordeaux and has suggested Roma could have a case to take legal action after it looked like everything was agreed for the deal to go through.
These are the key parts of Monchi’s statement on Roma’s official website:
‘We started a negotiation with Bordeaux and the player, through his agent, more or less a week ago. After three of four days of intensive negotiations, yesterday at about 5pm [Italian time] we found an agreement; with the agent, with the player and with Bordeaux.
‘The deal was done, and we had permission for the player to travel to Rome for a medical. There was a plane scheduled to leave at 9pm that would arrive at 11pm; everything was sorted. Because of this we were calm and collected.’
He added: ‘Now, within the club, we are looking at our options and seeing if we have a legal case. It is true that nothing was signed, but there are many messages with the agents and their president that are at least worth being assessed.’
— AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) July 24, 2018
In a message to the fans, Monchi concluded: ‘I am very sorry for what has happened, but I believe that we had a complete agreement with Bordeaux – and then offered even more than that to get it done again. President Pallotta made the decision to make the best offer possible, but when the negotiation became an auction we decided to withdraw from it. If someone wants to come to Roma that is great, but ultimately if they do not want to come to Rome then we do not want them.
‘I want to tell our fans that we are continuing to work hard, working to identify a player that wants to come to Roma and is the equal or even better than Malcom.’