It is always in the last days or even the last hours that the most things happen. This 2022 summer transfer window, which ended Thursday September 1 at 11 p.m., did not escape this rule in Ligue 1 football and in Europe.
The uncertain future of Marseille’s Bamba Dieng
It was the last day of the transfer window which had many twists and turns for the Senegalese international Bamba Dieng, player of Olympique de Marseille. The adventures around this player began on Wednesday. Bamba Dieng is on the list of planned departures from OM. Lorient then manifests itself to bring the Senegalese. First switch with a superior offer from the English club Leeds. The owner of the English club, Andréa Raddrizzani, is so confident that he even announces Dieng’s arrival on social networks. A jet is then chartered but the plane will never leave English soil.
Because a new rocking then intervenes with a third proposal coming from OGC Nice, the neighboring club, and which has the favors of the player. At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, the matter seemed settled, but finally, in a final twist, the Riviera club did not validate Bamba Dieng’s medical examination. The club evokes a “minor issue“detected in the knee. History does not say if this excuse is true in this complex case, but the Senegalese striker is therefore still from Marseille today.
Still remains a possibility for him, because the rules provide that as a medical joker, the deadline can be exceeded. This remains a snub for OM, as Bamba Dieng was the club’s main market value. A perfect illustration of the frenzy that can take over clubs, players and agents on the last day of the transfer window.
More departures than arrivals at PSG
The trend is towards “degreasing” in the big Ligue 1 clubs, starting with Paris-Saint-Germain. Yesterday alone, the capital club announced only one arrival for four departures. Spanish midfielder Carlos Soler joins the Paris squad. On the departure side, what is nicknamed the Parisian “loft”, expensive players who have become undesirable, is almost empty. The German Julian Draxler has taken over the management of Benfica, Layzyn Kurzawa and Idrissa Gueye will evolve in England, respectively at Fulham and Everton, while Abdou Diallo, he is heading to Germany at Leipzig.
A frustration all the same for the PSG, which failed to attract the Slovak defender Milan Skriniar. His club Inter Milan did not give in, and this will remain as the main failure of this transfer window for PSG, which nevertheless needs to strengthen its defensive sector. This transfer window is, on the whole, successful for the Parisian club with six arrivals and no “bling-bling”. The record transfer of this summer returns to the arrival of the Portuguese Vitinha in midfield, with a transaction at 40 million euros.
Huge amounts in England
Ligue 1 has remained modest this summer, in contrast to the spending spree of English clubs in the Premier League. the championship the richest in the world, the most attractive, has once again broken the piggy bank. More than two billion euros have been spent in all by the 20 clubs in the championship. We note in particular two transfers to 100 million euros: Anthony, the Brazilian striker to Manchester United, and the Uruguayan Darwin Nunez to Liverpool.
The Premier League has spent lavishly on its TV rights, which are far superior to other European championships. It is therefore logically across the Channel that we find eight of the ten most expensive transfers of the summer.