David Datro Fofana looks set to join AEK Athens, according to a piece from Simon Johnson in the Athletic today. Negotiations have apparently “increase” in the last 24 hours.
The Greek transfer window is one of the few left open, and Chelsea have decided they’d rather cut their losses on the striker, who had loans to Burnley and Union Berlin last season, but has spent the whole summer training with the “bomb squad” at Chelsea and is running out of options.
The Blues paid Molde more than €10m for Fofana, and AEK are apparently offering less – although with add-ons and that could take it above €10m if everything works out. That asking price is sinking fast, given it was supposed to be €12m just a week ago.
#CFC and AEK Athens have stepped up talks to agree sale of David Datro Fofana before window closes in Greece on Wednesday. More here: https://t.co/i9rxbPoAbr
— Simon Johnson (@SJohnsonSport) September 9, 2024
Striker emblematic of muddled thinking
Unfortunately for Fofana, and through no fault of his own, he’s become another example of the muddled thinking at Chelsea at the moment when it comes to transfers.
Buy cheap, good young players, develop them, sell them for a profit. It seems easy, right? We’ve all done it on Football Manager or FIFA, and we’ve all seen the likes of Brighton, Benfica or Brentford make a killing over the years. But it turns out it’s a little harder than it looks.
Fofana never had a chance – he was not that highly rated as a prospect to begin with, he was never given a proper chance at Chelsea (or anywhere on loan where he could improve his value), and now he’s going to be sold for a loss. We failed at all 3 stages of the process, and
Luckily the Ivorian was a fairly small investment – but when the same issue comes up with big money transfers like Mykhailo Mudryk, we’re really going to have the folly of this scheme hit home.
