Shortly after the close of the winter transfer window, Lugo announced their director of football Emilio de Dios wouldn’t be having his contract renewed. That led to a further announcement that De Dios would be leaving the club immediately, rather than waiting until the end of the season.
It all came after Alfonso Pedraza had left Lugo during the January transfer window to join Leeds United. On loan at Lugo from Villarreal, Pedraza’s parent club were able to recall the player and then loan him instead to Leeds, on loan with a view to a permanent deal.
Lugo were unhappy with the timing of the transfer, given that it came at the end of the window, and the club’s president made his irritation public. Therefore, it didn’t take too much of a leap to believe Pedraza’s move to Leeds led to De Dios leaving his post.
De Dios himself has since explained his exit was amicable, and when quizzed on Pedraza specifically he absolved himself of responsibility for the timing of the transfer.
El Progreso quote the Spaniard as saying: “Pedraza is a player of an impressive quality. He helped us compete to a very good level. His club had the opportunity to recover his registration to carry out a future operation and they did it by compensating Lugo with what was in the contract, there’s little more I can contribute.
“I do not decide the offers or things. I decided on behalf of Lugo the times we could go to the market, but in the situation of Pedraza I didn’t handle the timing.”
Whilst De Dios may insinuate it wasn’t his fault, Lugo may well have reasonably expected their director of football to advise them to have a cut off point on the loan recall. That way, had Villarreal and Leeds United wanted to complete a winter deal for Pedraza, they would have had to do so before an agreed date in January.
