Valencia’s sporting director Miguel Angel Corona has claimed Atletico Madrid tried to cancel the Conor Gallagher transfer.
This was reportedly so they could facilitate the move for Javi Guerra.
Gallagher is in Spain to complete a £35m move to Atletico and arrived in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The Spanish club had also been in talks with Valencia for Guerra, but that move collapsed.
“There is a maximum agreement (between clubs) on Sunday, plus it was between the president of Valencia and the maximum shareholder of Atletico Madrid,” Corona said.
“On Wednesday morning, due to the delay in the return of Atletico’s documents and some comments made, a specific question was asked to Atletico’s owner, about the situation, why the delay, and the answer was that they were trying to get out of the Chelsea operation and that, if they don’t succeed, they can’t face the Javi Guerra operation.
“It was the first news that we and Javi had about it, that the operations were linked, and therefore we (Valencia) got out of it because it was not a condition that was discussed on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, when there were constant WhatsApps, emails, calls, comments on clauses…. We were not informed of anything regarding the link between the two and we got out of it to protect ourselves.”
