Lassine Sinayoko: AJ Auxerre harshly criticized after the transfer window | OneFootball

Lassine Sinayoko

This was one of the summer’s most surprising sagas. Just hours after the transfer window closed, AJ Auxerre is under fire for the Lassine Sinayoko affair.

Targeted this summer by OGC Nice, RC Lens, and Olympique Lyonnais, Lassine Sinayoko ultimately stayed with Auxerre. Although his contract expires next June, AJA was determined to keep him. RC Lens came very close to signing him this summer, but Lens finally decided to gamble on Odsonne Édouard (27).

AJA’s methods clearly did not sit well with Jean-Louis Leca, Lens’ sporting director, who lashed out at the Icaunais management. “He was on our shortlist. We saw that Nice was after the player, so I got in my car and asked the Auxerre management for a meeting to avoid any frustration. I asked if we could speak to the player to do things by the book. Auxerre had criticized Nice, claiming they hadn’t followed the rules. We negotiated for two or three hours,” Leca explained on RMC.

“There were three conditions. The price, that he would get playing time—because the coach wanted him to play—and that everything should be put in writing to avoid any issues. They agreed, we shook hands, looked each other in the eye, and they told me, ‘We’re men at Auxerre.’ They wrote up the draft, everything was set, but in the end, they just weren’t men. (...) On Sunday, they didn’t know what to do anymore: ‘well yes, well no, it’s the agents’ fault, or someone else’s...’ But they didn’t keep their word, and I told them exactly what I thought,” he added.

He also clarified that he had an agreement with the player, who “was in Paris with his agent, ready to join us. When Auxerre pulled this dirty trick, they told us they were forbidding the player from traveling. They threatened him, saying there would be consequences. He wanted to come, they held him hostage. We said we had to walk away from the deal and stop working with people like that.”