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Man City OVERPAID by €30m for Rayan Cherki
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Rayan Cherki has hit the ground running with Manchester City after his €42.5m summer arrival from Olympique Lyonnais.
The 22-year-old from France has a goal and six assists in 11 Premier League appearances, which may make fans believe City paid a fair price for his services.
But the star attacking midfielder could have left for a much lower price, according to what Lyon owner John Textor told RMC Sport (via FootMercato).
Similar to other young stars to leave Lyon in recent years, Textor had promised Cherki that he could join PSG specifically for the right price. "Listen, there were promises that had been made to him, according to which he could leave earlier,” Textor said.
“These promises came on my desk as for [Bradley] Barcola, [Castello] Lukeba and others. Cherki had to go to PSG for €15 million. There was a very unusual clause in his contract, which was not a real release clause, but which still gave him some room for manoeuvre to leave.”
Lyon lucky to dodge Cherki-PSG promise
Evidently, PSG never came calling, likely because the Parisians had plenty of wingers, including Bradley Barcola, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, and Désiré Doué.
That opened the door for City to seal the deal, which was to the benefit of Textor and Lyon, since they had not promised Cherki that he could join that club for a specific price.
“In the end, if he had been entirely our player without all these complications, we would have achieved more for him,” Textor insisted. “But getting more than €30m for a player whose clause was set well below this amount, I think financially, we did as well as possible.”
Cherki's departure was of massive help in Lyon's bid to get on more stable economic ground after months of fearing for the club's top-flight status. Ultimately, the Ligue 1 giants managed to overturn a ruling to forcefully demote the club to Ligue 2.
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