Andros Townsend left in limbo by new club’s transfer ban: ‘I don’t know who owns me’ | OneFootball

Andros Townsend has been left in transfer limbo after leaving Luton Town with new club Antalyaspor unable to register the winger.

Townsend has signed a contract with the Turkish club after making the decision to depart English football, but his move came after Fifa imposed a transfer ban on the Super Lig side.

It means that while he is able to train with his teammates, the 33-year-old cannot be officially announced as an Antalyaspor player or feature in matches.

Townsend, capped 13 times by England, has been given assurances that the deal will be officially confirmed as soon as possible, but admits the purgatory is worrying.

“I’m stuck in Antalyaspor just training,” Townsend told BBC 5 Live’s Monday Night Club. “I don’t know who owns me, I don’t know where my contract is.

“I’ve had a crazy couple of weeks. Three days before the start of the season at Luton, I get a phone call from Antalyaspor saying ‘we have an offer for you but you’ve got 24 hours to respond because we’ve got a transfer ban coming and we need to get you in before the transfer ban’.

“No time to think about it, I managed to negotiate to be involved in the first game for Luton, then it was literally all signed and all done.

Andros Townsend spent last season at Luton (Getty Images)

“We missed the deadline by a couple of hours. The contract is signed [but] they can’t officially register me, they can’t announce me because they have a transfer ban. Every time I ask them, they say ‘the contract is signed, you’re our player’. But nothing has been announced.”

Townsend spent last season at Kenilworth Road after two years at Everton, scoring once in 28 Premier League appearances as Rob Edwards’ side dropped back into the Championship.

Luton had been keen to keep the experienced wing, but Townsend was certain that a move to the southern Turkish city was the right decision.

“There were so many red flags, you wouldn’t believe it,” the former Tottenham and Crystal Palace winger admitted. “But something was telling me this is the right move for me, to go and experience something new in Antalya which is a beautiful city right near the beach. Something was telling me to make it happen.

“I had some great conversations with [manager] Rob Edwards and [chief executive] Gary Sweet at Luton, they wanted me to stay but they were supportive of what I wanted to do.

“I made the decision, I thought, to move out here. Honestly, I’ve no idea what’s happening and what’s going to happen.

“I keep getting told ‘tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow’. Every time I ask what’s happening they say ‘don’t worry you are our player, you’re contracted to us, you can’t go anywhere’. I’m just here.”