Marseille president Pablo Longoria denies claims of a set-up in Adrien Rabiot saga | OneFootball

Olympique de Marseille president Pablo Longoria has strongly rejected suggestions that the club engineered Adrien Rabiot’s exit following his violent dressing-room altercation with Jonathan Rowe last Friday. Speaking to AFP, Longoria insisted that the incident alone forced OM’s hand and that Rabiot had previously been at the heart of the club’s long-term project.

“To insinuate that this was a set-up is to go against the truth and to disrespect people’s intelligence,” said Longoria. “Throughout June, we called Adrien every day because we absolutely wanted him to continue with us. Before the end of last season, we offered him a contract extension with a pay rise because he had earned it, both with his performances on the pitch and his investment off it. For me, he was the example of what we wanted to build.”

Longoria revealed that talks had advanced in the summer, although negotiations were slowed by Rabiot’s entourage. “We had a first meeting, then a second one that could not take place because his representative told us it was too difficult. I am not lying. If we wanted to move on from him, it would have been much easier to do it in June.”

The OM president went on to stress that the midfielder had been given full freedom over his future: “I told him that if he wasn’t convinced, he shouldn’t stay. And he decided to stay. If he wasn’t happy, he could have left in June under a gentleman’s agreement for a set figure.”

Rabiot now faces an exit in far more turbulent circumstances after what Longoria described as “an event of extreme violence, something unheard of” in the dressing room at Roazhon Park. Both he and Rowe remain on the transfer list as OM prepare for the final stretch of the summer window.GFFN | George Boxall