Roma director Walter Sabatini
has revealed why he decided to sell Erik Lamela to Tottenham Hotspur this summer and explained the club’s other transfer moves.
The Argentine starlet made a €30 million move to Tottenham this summer, where he reunited with the Giallorossi’s former director general Franco Baldini, who had on numerous occasions expressed admiration for the 21-year-old forward.
“It was a painful sale for all of us,” Sabatini told the press.
“At the beginning we didn’t think we could sell Erik and we didn’t want to. Then some new factors came into play and as time went on we started to consider the eventuality.”
It is understood that a Serie A club approached Roma with a good offer for Lamela before Tottenham, but Sabatini refused to sell one of his stars to domestic rivals.
“When that Italian club offered him €3.5m a season, as well as a €2m commission to his agent father, we knew we had lost the player.”
Other than Lamela, who scored 19 goals in 62 appearances in his two seasons at the Olimpico , the Giallorossi lost two other key squad members from last season in the face of Marquinhos, who was sold to Paris Saint-Germaine for €31.5m, and leading scorer Pablo Osvaldo, who also chose the Premier League and moved to Southampton for €15m.
“Roma are not a selling club,” Sabatini clarified.
“We are working toward the objective of being competitive.
“No one obliged me to sell.
“But it was a tough market because it came after the Coppa Italia Final loss, there was a compromised psychological dimension and we had to rebuild with what was left to us.
“However, the market was concluded satisfactorily and we are sure we have built a competitive team.
“We didn’t sell the future, we sold shreds of the future.
“We also signed players by spending important figures and there are still young players of value in the squad.”
During the transfer window, the Giallorossi strengthened their squad by bringing in experienced Maicon from Manchester City and Marco de Sanctis from Napoli, highly rated Mehdi Benatia from Udinese and Kevin Strootman from PSV Eindhoven, as well as young prospects Tin Jedvaj and Lukasz Skorupski.
