Imbroglio in Paris, expensive recruit in Marseille! The arrival of the renowned Moroccan Hakim Ziyech at Paris SG, although tied up, was not approved in time before the end of the winter market, while OM managed to secure the services of the promising Portuguese striker Vitinha on Tuesday.
Until the last minutes of the evening, everything seemed in order for Ziyech’s arrival at PSG. The 29-year-old was in Paris, he had passed his medical examination, his club had agreed to a loan without an option to buy which would have saved the sluggish transfer window of PSG …
But everything finally went wrong: according to two sources with knowledge of the file, Chelsea made several errors in the transmission of the administrative documents necessary for the approval of the contract of the international winger … Documents which finally arrived too late, arousing the anger internally in Paris.
The Professional Football League (LFP) had given clubs until 11:00 p.m. to send contracts, then midnight to register their transfers in the software dedicated to international transfers (Fifa TMS) … A timed and uncompromising schedule.
According to one of these sources, PSG plans to file an appeal on Wednesday with the LFP to try to validate this loan despite these delays. But a reversal of the situation would establish a dangerous precedent…
– PSG empty-handed –
PSG therefore find themselves without winter recruits, an unlikely situation for their wealthy Qatari owners, even more two weeks before the knockout stages of the Champions League against Bayern Munich, while the results are slipping.
Because in defense, Paris also missed the expected signing of the Slovak Milan Skriniar, Inter Milan preferring to let him go free at the end of the season, rather than giving him up at the end of January without having found his replacement.
At the end of the evening, PSG also agreed to let their N.2 goalkeeper, Keylor Navas, go on loan to Nottingham Forest.
The Parisian imbroglio, in the middle of the night, closed a busy day on the transfer window in Ligue 1, restoring some luster to a transfer market that was generally quite calm, except perhaps in Lyon or Lorient.
In Marseille, the management ended the evening with a smile: OM doubled the English clubs to attract Vitinha (Braga), who could become the biggest transfer in its history.
The young striker (22) has signed up for four and a half years for a total amount of up to 32 million euros (25 million + 7 million bonus), to which could be added 10% of a future transfer , according to the Portuguese club.
Either an operation that would exceed the biggest recruitment ever made by OM, namely the return of Dimitri Payet in 2017 (30 M EUR).
“From Braga to Marseille. New number 9 in town,” Marseille tweeted.
OM, which has long been looking for a “great striker”, has high hopes for Vitinha, who has scored 13 goals and five assists in 27 matches this season.
This arrival concludes in any case a spectacular winter recruitment after the Ukrainian Ruslan Malinovskyi and the Moroccan revelation of the World Cup-2022 Azzedine Ounahi.
– The Chelsea frenzy –
Elsewhere in L1, big deals have been few.
Lorient managed two nice gains by selling their winger Dango Ouattara to Bournemouth for more than 20 million euros, then their center forward Terem Moffi to Nice, where the Nigerian striker signed on Tuesday for a loan with a purchase obligation set at 25 million euros plus five million bonuses.
In Lyon, sad 9th in Ligue 1, OL have slimmed down and remodeled their workforce. Dejan Lovren, a former home, reinforced the defense, and the young Swede Amin Sarr came to garnish the attack, as well as the Brazilian winger Jeffinho.
In terms of sales, the most lucrative transaction of the winter in L1 is to the credit of Monaco, which recovered nearly 40 million euros from Chelsea for its defender Benoît Badiashile.
It is the symbol of the spending frenzy of the London club, a major animator of this January transfer window with more than 200 M EUR invested, in particular to steal Ukrainian striker Mykhailo Mudryk from the nose and beard of Arsenal… awaiting the possible arrival of world champion Enzo Fernandez, being finalized overnight in England for a crazy amount (approximately EUR 120 million).
The rest of the big European clubs were parsimonious in January, like Manchester City, Real Madrid or Manchester United, which saw its superstar Cristiano Ronaldo leave for a golden exile in the Saudi club Al -Nassr.
