For a long time, Manchester City’s Wilfried Bony was a success story in the Premier League.
Brought to the English top tier by Swansea City in 2013 for £13.6m from Vitesse in Holland, the Ivory Coast international became one of the better strikers in the league, using his power and quality finishing to help the Swans establish themselves as a Premier League club.
After just two years, the now 28-year-old earned himself a move to the Etihad, when Manchester City spent over £27m on his services in January 2015, only to send him to Stoke City on loan a year and a half later when Pep Guardiola took over.
This meteoric rise in football, going from the Eredivisie to one of the Premier League’s bigger clubs in just over three years, was partly down to Bony, but also had a lot to do with his agent at the time, Francis Kacou.
Now president of AFAD Djékanou in Ivory Coast, Kacou ended up in front of a court in London in December after Wilfried Bony decided to sue him ‘over money taken in deals’, having terminated his dealings with the Manchester City loanee back in July.
While the case was ongoing, the former agent decided to stay quiet, never saying anything to the media.
Until now.
Speaking to Abidjan Sports, relayed by SportMania in Ivory Coast, Francis Kacou finally got everything he had to say about Wilfried Bony off his chest.
He said: “In the Bony affair, many things were said. I never said anything, as you may have noticed, and that was a choice. I’ve only got one thing to say to Bony: if he can’t say thank you, then just shut up. I took him in at Issia Wazi (an Ivorian club) where he’d never played a game, even with a youth team.
“He was here at Abidjan. He slept in PK18 (an overpopulated block of the city) and used to come into my office and call me ‘uncle’. Already in Abidjan, I clothed him, got him boots, gave him money. He lived at mine. I found him an opportunity with a clear career plan. If today I’m his enemy number one, that’s shocking to those who saw everything I did for him.”
It’s not uncommon for agents to do this kind of thing, trying to help the players they believe so much in as much as they can.
Even at the highest level, the likes of Mino Raiola ensures his clients have everything they need.
However, Kacou didn’t stop there, clearly on a roll.
He added: “This kid (Bony) is very nasty. The word ungrateful doesn’t mean anything compared to his nastiness. I picked him up to turn him into the Wilfried Bony that everyone knows today. I sent him to the Czech Republic with the help of a partner.
“We help him and even explain to him everything he needs to do on the pitch. I lost money, sacrificed myself because I decided that Bony would be the Didier Drogba of my GFK Pro agency.”
And just in case that wasn’t enough, Kacou added another layer to the whole thing by slyly mocking Bony’s situation at Manchester City these days.
He said: “He tells everyone that it’s his football that sent him to Manchester City, but why didn’t his football keep him there? He knows what I did to get him to Manchester City. I’ve only one sentence for him, and I’m waiting for it: ‘When you, Bony, look at yourself, do you feel like a Manchester City player?;
“Is he at the same level as Agüero, Yaya Touré, Sterling, De Bruyne? When he looks at his games, can he compare? I brought him there. Proof: as soon as he stopped working with me and took his Chris (Nathaniel, his current agent), one month after, they got rid of him.”
