Lazio accuse agent of blocking January deal for Loftus-Cheek – the allegation

Lazio have blamed influence from a ‘powerful figure’ for not being able to sign some January targets, reports claim.

According to Calcio e Finanza – who cite La Repubblica – Lazio have lodged a complaint about the business they have been able to do in the January transfer window. The deal for Kenneth Taylor from Ajax also seriously risked falling through, before ultimately coming to fruition.

At Formello, the Lazio headquarters, the winter transfer window has become an obstacle course with advanced negotiations were then suddenly halted for no plausible technical reason. At least in their eyes.

Now, however, a background story has emerged that has drawn the attention of the judiciary. The Rome prosecutor’s office will shed light on the matter.

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On Wednesday, Lazio’s sporting director – Angelo Fabiani – filed a complaint with the Carabinieri at the Trastevere station. This detailed and particularly significant complaint immediately led to a file being filed with Rome’s prosecutors.

The document names Ylan Singer, an international agent who, according to the complaint, allegedly acted without any authority in Lazio’s transfer market operations, influencing negotiations and casting both the club and its sporting director in a bad light in the eyes of other operators in the sector.

The crux of the complaint concerns a series of messages (all in English) that Singer allegedly sent to Guido Albers, the Dutch agent of midfielder Kenneth Taylor, during the key days of the deal that was ultimately finalised by Lazio.

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Fabiani allegedly obtained these messages and attached them to the complaint. One of them, dated January 6, is described as openly intimidating: “Guido, we’re preventing them from signing Loftus-Cheek from Milan and Samardzic from Atalanta. The people I’m here with are very powerful people, and I can’t tell them you’re not answering the phone.”

For Fabiani, those words left no room for interpretation. The suspicion was that someone had tried to prevent Lazio from making these deals. Claudio Lotito did however seem to confirm that Loftus-Cheek had turned down a move to the capital.

Singer allegedly sent a second message to Guido Albers, this time targeting Fabiani directly: “The sporting director insisted on the operation being carried out with the involvement of Edoardo Colombo [another agent] at all costs for personal reasons .”

Lazio were unable to sign anyone in the summer and went into January with €60m raised from the sales of Valentin Castellanos and Mattéo Guendouzi. These funds have not yet been reinvested which has led to strong protests from fans, but not for the want of trying it seems.