Club still waiting to ‘reward’ player after West Brom transfer failure, intriguing situation

 

Just before the summer transfer window closed Malaga owner Sheikh Al-Thani went public to confirm Igancio Camacho had asked to leave the club.

West Brom had approached the player and turned his head, and a transfer was considered only a matter of time. Camacho had a release clause of €18m and it was thought to be no problem for West Brom to trigger that, however, the Premier League club offered €15m plus €3m in bonuses instead and the deal broke down.

To get Camacho’s head right he was told he’d be rewarded for his loyalty to Malaga, even though that hadn’t really been the case. A new contract was on the agenda to make the player forget his West Brom wishes.

In November, we covered reports from Spain that the renewal hadn’t yet come and it was creating some tension at Malaga, it looked like a perfect opportunity for West Brom to swoop for Camacho in January.

That didn’t happen either and, still, there’s no new deal. Marca report on Friday that Malaga are making it a ‘priority’, and quote the club’s sporting director Francesc Arnau as saying: “We’ll try to renew.”

It’s an odd situation. The 26 year old’s contract expires in June 2019, so whilst there’s no immediate rush, if Malaga seriously thought it was a priority, they could have sorted it out by now.

Perhaps they’d have been content for West Brom to pay the player’s clause and don’t want a situation where they raise that clause, sell him for less than the new buyout amount, and face a backlash from fans.