Lazio sporting director Angelo Fabiani has hit out at Daichi Kamada and his camp as Crystal Palace move to try to sign the midfielder and says he will not be ‘taken for a ride or blackmailed’.
Kamada only signed a contract with Lazio for 12 months when he joined the club last summer and the Italian side have been trying to keep him.
The midfielder could have triggered a three-year extension, while Lazio were also working to get him to renew.
Now though Kamada looks bound for Crystal Palace, who have sent officials to Italy to seal the deal.
Fabiani has been left fuming and insisted he will not be ‘taken for a ride and blackmailed’ by anyone, having been presented with demands from the player and his camp that he was not prepared to agree to.
“I’m not being taken for a ride and blackmailed by anyone. I told him that I was not even interested in discussing this extortion, because in fact that was what it was”, Fabiani was quoted as saying by Italian journalist Nicolo Schira.
“It was an unacceptable condition. Yesterday the clause in favour of Kamada to renew for three years was expiring and we were faced with something unexpected.”
The sporting director suggested that Kamada’s camp were again talking about just a year long deal with an option to extend.
“The moment the entourage and Kamada shows up asking for the same kind of contract as last year, we were faced with great discourtesy.”
Lazio now look set to lose the midfielder, who appears likely to reunite with his former Eintracht Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner at Crystal Palace.
