Lille president reveals new Morelos bid rejected
Well past his sell-by date now.
Lille president Gerard Lopez has confirmed his club has bid £16.5M for Alfredo Morelos, and the bid was rejected.
After the French giants’ initial bid of under £10M was dismissed, the Ligue 1 giants came back in with a substantially improved number, but Rangers still deemed it too low, and said no, at which point Lopez sanctioned the final move for Genk’s Jonathan David instead, at a cost of around £27M.
David had been Lille’s first choice, but having failed to bid enough (they opened their numbers at just over £20M) they moved onto try for Morelos, but the sub-£10M wasn’t enough, and of course, neither was the £16.5M.
At which point, they bit the bullet and put the full number into David and paid Genk’s asking price.
Meanwhile, Lopez has confirmed the deal for Morelos is not dead in the water, and they may bid again for his services come the end of the transfer window, if he is still available.
It does add up to further uncertainty over the Colombian, whose form this year has been persistently poor, given his lack of focus, but does certainly confirm Rangers value him around £20M and won’t accept anything lower, unless there are major add-ons in the deal too.
As for Morelos? He’s certain to start Saturday’s clash with Killie, while both Cedric Itten and Kemar Roofe continue to work on fitness.