Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani this week had a long conversation with the Italian media, having spoken to DAZN about his time in charge of the Elland Road side.
As already covered by Sport Witness, the businessman shared interesting quotes about Marcelo Bielsa, detailing how difficult it was for the Whites to sack the Argentine coach.
It turns out Radrizzani also talked about the transfer market, explaining how things work at Leeds, and detailing specific cases.
An interesting topic was the signing of Wilfried Gnonto, who was bought from FC Zurich in a €4.5m deal last summer. He started by pointing out that the Italian player was only bought because Bamba Dieng gave up on his transfer.
“This market has been crazy. Also on the last day we take Bamba from Marseille, I also tweet, but then he doesn’t get off the plane. I ask Orta what had happened and he told me that he no longer wanted to leave, in the end he goes to Nice and we anticipate the arrival of Gnonto which was only expected in January,” Andrea Radrizzani told DAZN (via TuttoMercatoWeb).
“Thank God, I’m very proud of him. Then Bamba didn’t pass his medicals with Nice and stayed in Marseille.”
The Whites president then explained that the original plan hadn’t been to sign Gnonto that early, but the collapse of Dieng’s arrival changed the whole scenario.
“We either wanted to sign him in January or in any case in February for June. Then the crisis of the last few days on the market made us anticipate, we found an agreement with Zurich. I love him, he’s Italian and he is an exceptional boy. It’s difficult to find a 19-year-old Italian who speaks four languages very well and has such an open mind.”
Radrizzani insists he’s proud that Leeds United have Gnonto, and he has some justification for that. Slowly making his adaptation at the club, the 19-year-old already has four goals and one assist in 15 appearances.
