Shock Gallagher TWIST! Atletico Madrid wanted to CANCEL Chelsea transfer…SEE WHY
Miguel Angel Corona, the sporting director of Valencia, claims that Atletico Madrid attempted to thwart Conor Gallagher’s impending transfer from Chelsea in order to sign Javi Guerra.
For a rumored €42 million, Gallagher, 24, is expected to leave Chelsea to join Atletico Madrid, while Samu Omorodion, a Spain U21 international, is expected to go the other way.
With just a year remaining on his current contract at Stamford Bridge, the England international—who competed for his country at Euro 2024—rejected the Blues’ most recent offer of a two-season extension.
Atletico Madrid acted swiftly to complete negotiations with Chelsea, and this week a deal was agreed.
However, the Spanish giants were also in discussions to sign Valencia midfielder Guerra. In fact, Atletico reached an agreement to purchase the 21-year-old for a fee of roughly €25m, as per The Athletic.
Despite this agreement, the move has now collapsed as Atleti failed to finalise the deal by Valencia’s deadline of Wednesday.
What has been said?
Corona, Valencia’s sporting director, has now revealed that Atletico Madrid were reportedly trying to get out of their agreement to sign Gallagher.
“There is a maximum agreement (between clubs) on Sunday, plus it was between the president of Valencia and the maximum shareholder of Atletico Madrid,” Corona said, as per The Athletic.
“On Monday, the documentation is developed and, in the same way, it goes in parallel with the player, who is advancing in this negotiation and almost closes the agreement.
“On Wednesday morning, due to the delay in the return of Atletico’s documents and some comments made, a specific question was asked to Atletico’s owner, about the situation, why the delay, and the answer was that they were trying to get out of the Chelsea operation and that, if they don’t succeed, they can’t face the Javi Guerra operation.”
Corona continued: “It was the first news that we and Javi had about it, that the operations were linked, and therefore we [Valencia] got out of it because it was not a condition that was discussed on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, when there were constant WhatsApps, emails, calls, comments on clauses.
“We were not informed of anything regarding the link between the two [Guerra and Gallagher] and we got out of it to protect ourselves.”