Monaco issue warning to Chelsea after cancelling £47m Lamine Camara transfer

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Chelsea agreed a £47m deal to sign Lamine Camara (AMA/Getty) Scuro was also adamant that Camara, who has also attracted interest from Liverpool and Manchester United this summer, ‘will have better options and offers’ next year. ‘Our priority was to keep Lamine in the club, it’s going to be his third season, normally the cycle we do we try to protect our solid performers because the performances are strongly connected to the financial situation of the club as well,’ Scuro said. ‘Clearly, we were open to discussing a transfer for Balogun, he finished his third season, we were already working to replace him, we were fully ready to do this. Folarin Balogun pulled the plug on his move to Everton (Getty) ‘This is what we had until mid-afternoon, what happened is Chelsea was always testing and trying, ‘what about Lamine, what about Lamine?’, I’ve been talking to them in the last 10 days. ‘Around 4pm yesterday, we got a contact from Chelsea, ‘we sold a player in this position, deal done, is there any possibility that Monaco is open to selling Lamine?’.

It took Everton around two, three hours to go deep in their assessment, check with other doctors, this is a normal situation when the doctor of the club raises concerns, it’s quite normal clubs will look for other specialists, sharing images and discussing the case, this was ongoing. ‘Meanwhile, as everything on the last day this was in the press quite quickly, I would say around half hour after we were contacted it was already in the media that Balogun had failed his medical. ‘Chelsea saw the opportunity, ‘okay, Monaco need money, Balogun is struggling there, let’s try’. We had discussions between the conditions for Chelsea to go to Chelsea, at the same time the medical discussion was ongoing with Balo. ‘And what happened around 10pm Everton realised there was no problem, as soon as we got the information we came back to Chelsea and said, ‘we have our deal there [with Balogun], there is no deal on Lamine’, because it is also fair to do this, it is also part of the game. ‘There is no reason that these kind of discussions are dynamic on the last day of the transfer window which all of us decided on the last day to try to find solutions, with the clock ticking, that now this kind of interaction becomes the bad guy in the room, that Monaco are not fair, Monaco are not right, everybody is very fair and nice, just Monaco are not… too much. ‘So this is the story we’re telling.

And that’s the way we finished our transfer window. ‘We are very, very happy that Lamine stayed. What I mentioned before is the facts, whatever different interpretations or judgements that people can have doesn’t belong to me here, it’s not my role to judge whatever someone did at another club. ‘On Lamine, I really respect and understand because the player might have got excited during the day yesterday by conversations with the coach, by everything that a club like Chelsea can propose and promise a player, at the end of the day he also asked us to try to find a solution for him to go, but we explained the reasons why we did it and now we’re going to keep respect and work with him, knowing his mentality and character, we can expect him at full power the next game and he’s going to keep building his career. ‘As many other players, better things will come in the future, this is not the end of the world, it’s just one possibility.