Now It’s Malouda’s Turn…

By: Inara | July 6th, 2007

I’ve always thought that Florent Malouda was smarter than Eric Abidal. Malouda is level headed, reasonable, logical, and can grasp the obvious. That’s why I assumed Malouda would be much more calm about his transfer than Abidal was with his.

Clearly I was mistaken.

For those of you not up to speed, Chelsea, like Barcelona, had their insufficient offers refused, and rightly so. Unlike Abidal, Malouda signed a new contract last fall and is one of Lyon’s most important players. If he leaves, it has to be financially worthwhile for Lyon.

Chelsea, who are trying to pass themselves off as Cheapski this summer, tabled bids well below the €25m mark that Aulas set. Their first bid of €12m was rejected, as was their second, at €17m. Their third bid, at €18.5m, was also rejected. Considering the fact that Lyon bought Keita for €18m, it’s kind of dumb to think that Aulas will let Malouda go for under €20m.

For a few days, things seemed to be at a stalemate between the two clubs until Aulas dropped a bombshell: that Real Madrid were also interested in Malouda’s services, with Madrid president Roman Calderon confirming that.

Any person with the intellectual understanding of a five year old will know that these tactics are to maneuver Chelsea. Madrid want Arjen Robben while Lyon want to drive up Malouda’s price.

Duh.

Said Aulas in an interview:

I said to Flo that I wasn’t sure the deal was going to materialize and that it was necessary he went to Tignes [Lyon's training base]. I am not sure Chelsea have the desire or the means to call out to Florent Malouda…I don’t feel these people really want to tie up this deal.

Classic bartering tactics.

Chelsea predictably panicked. In the span of three days, Chelsea executive Peter Kenyon went from denying that Malouda was a target to saying that he was confident of his signing. They tabled a fresh bid of an undisclosed amount, but it was big enough for Aulas to seriously consider the offer (The Guardian reports €22m). In fact, the bid was so serious that Aulas recalled Malouda from OL’s pre-season camp at Tignes to come to Lyon’s head office.

Of course, Aulas likes his games and said that afternoon:

The club recalls that they accepted the request of the player to look at opportunities to move, declaring from the start that the transfer fee should be between €20 and €25 million. At the moment, no offer at this level has been made to Lyon. Nevertheless, the club stay loyal to the promise made to the player and are therefore prepared to look at all offers that have been made.

You would think that such a ploy would be obvious to anyone possessing reasonable intelligence, but Malouda doesn’t seem to get it. On his official website, he he left a charming message for his fans, translated best by google:

Being given the situation in which I find myself, it is important to make a point: I always endeavored to have the best possible behavior with respect to my employers by putting side of possible states of heart in order to privilege the intérèt club. I would not return in the details but it seems that the club decided to lead me the hard life to the contempt of what I will be able to call the ” rendered service “. My family and me let us be affected but will assume us the collateral damage because one approaches a frangible joint with the leaders…

Dude. Flo. You need to chill out. You know, just as the rest of us know, that you’ll be in Chelsea by next week. But don’t you think you should leave the negotiating to Aulas and let him take care of it? So if you could just calm the fuck down and at least let Lyon get their money’s worth, I’d really appreciate it.