Viktor Gyokeres' agent slams Sporting 'mess' and regrets Man City involvement

Viktor Gyokeres' agent has hammered Sporting Lisbon for how they handled the striker's exit as he claimed new Man City chief Hugo Viana would've honoured their agreement

One of Viktor Gyokeres' representatives has taken aim at Sporting Lisbon for creating a "mess" for the Swede as he sought to achieve an exit from the Portuguese champions. The lengthy saga ended with him joining Arsenal, but not before plenty of animosity.

Sporting were braced for offers when it came to their star striker, who has been one of Europe's most prolific frontmen, but had hoped to retain his services. Gyokeres made it clear he wanted to leave though and believed a gentleman's agreement was in place.

The Lisbon outfit denied any such thing existed and the situation soon turned nasty. The club were frustrated by suggestions from Gyokeres’ agent, Hasan Cetinkaya, that an agreement had been reached over the striker’s transfer fee before the start of the window.

Sporting then fined Gyokeres €350,000 (£306,000), which was his entire salary for July, due to his refusal to report back for pre-season training earlier this month.

But Jonathan Chalkias, who works alongside Cetinkaya to manage Gyokeres, claims former Sporting chief Hugo Viana, who left to take up the same role at Manchester City, would've honoured the agreement to let him go and avoided the messy exit.

He told Swedish network WTV: "It was a mess. There was a gentleman’s agreement with the previous sporting director. If Hugo Viana were still at Sporting, the deal would have been done in an hour. Everything was written, we didn’t have time to start a legal battle.

"I don’t understand how a player who scored so many goals and won three trophies didn’t deserve more respect. The sacrifices we made were the turning point for the deal to happen. They offered Gyokeres to Real Madrid, they even made headlines with Man United, but there was a commitment with Arsenal.

"Viktor always trusted Hasan Cetinkaya’s [the striker’s agent] project: they agreed to move to a league with less exposure, like the Portuguese, to win titles and return to the Premier League. At the time, there were already seven Premier League clubs interested."

Gyokeres though has come out and claimed he doesn't blame anyone for the way the transfer saga played out with the striker himself having a number of options to consider but claimed it "wasn’t a difficult decision" to opt for Arsenal when they came to the party.