Yaya Touré
is on a collision course with Manchester City over his future after supporting
his agent’s claim that he is unhappy – but the club are determined the Ivory
Coast midfielder will not be sold.
Touré took
to Twitter on Tuesday to agree with Dimitri Seluk after the agent claimed that
his player is unhappy at the lack of proper acknowledgement afforded him by the
club on the occasion of his birthday last week in Abu Dhabi.
One of
Touré’s grievances is understood to be that he felt his team-mates David Silva,
Vincent Kompany and Sergio Agüero were treated with greater acclaim in Abu
Dhabi by Sheikh Mansour, the club’s owner, and Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the
chairman.
“He got a
cake but when it was Roberto Carlos’s birthday the president of Anzhi gave him
a Bugatti,” Seluk told the BBC. “I don’t expect City to present Yaya with a
Bugatti; we only asked that they shook his hand and said: ‘We congratulate
you.’ It is the minimum they must do when it is his birthday and the squad is
all together.
“I hear one
newspaper has written that City congratulated him from Twitter but this is a
joke. It is better they don’t put anything on Twitter if they are not saying
anything to him. The club’s owners ate a 100kg cake after winning the Premier
League this season but when they and the players were all together, none of
them shook his hand on his birthday. It shows they don’t care about him.”
As Seluk
also stated that Touré may leave City, despite having three years left on a
£220,000-a-week contract, the Ivorian’s subsequent tweets also came as an
endorsement of this.
“There’s a
big possibility Yaya will leave this summer,” Seluk told the Sun. “What
happened at his birthday meant the club don’t care about him. It was proof.
When your best worker has his birthday from time to time it’s not bad to shake
his hand. To make him feel valued and appreciated. They don’t give any
attention to Yaya.”
Touré had
initially used Twitter to deny what Seluk said. He wrote: “Thanks for all the
birthday messages today. Card from City just arrived … Must have got lost in
the post. Haha. Jokes aside. Please do not take words that do not come out of
MY mouth seriously. Judge my commitment to @MCFC by my performances.”
But less
that an hour later Touré did an about turn, tweeting: “My agent was trying to
make a point here on my behalf, joke aside. It seems important for me to make a
statement.. i am going to do so. Everything dimitry said is true . He speaks
for me. I will give an interview after world cup to explain.” He later deleted
his initial tweet.
City, while
not wishing to inflame the situation, are calm about Touré’s future. There is
no will to allow him to leave, with the three years he has signed up for
placing the Premier League champions in a strong position.
culled from guardian.co.uk
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