In a bizarre twist, the father of Udinese midfielder Lazar Samardzic claims that Inter closed the deal for his sons transfer with the wrong person. Mladen Samardzic spoke with SportItalia and claimed that the Nerzzurri were in talks with super agent Rafaela Pimenta, who doesn’t represent his son:
Mr. Samardzic, what happened with Inter then?
“Inter made a mistake: they did the whole negotiation and closed the deal with a person who did not have permission to do so.”
You’re talking about Rafaela Pimenta, I suppose
“Of course, her. But I’ve only seen her once in my life. I don’t know how she got into this, because the negotiation was between Udinese and Inter: then we found her in the middle, who wanted to close the deal without our permission. So when I received the draft contract from Inter and we saw that she was there as Lazar’s intermediary and representative, we asked that this be changed. We asked to speak directly with Inter, to have a meeting with them and to change this: but they obviously didn’t want to do the deal anymore so, without her, they claimed that she was Lazar’s agent.”
Is it true that Inter did not answer your calls in those days and in the mid-August?
“Of course, we called them. We even wrote an e-mail. No response, because for Inter it was all over because they only wanted to deal with Pimenta. They had closed the deal with her, but not with us. She has no permission from us: she had done the deal with Inter because obviously she has so many players there and she has a good relationship with the club, but there was no agreement with us, no permission.”
Did you ever meet Beppe Marotta or Piero Ausilio to talk about this?
“Yes, we met that Friday (August 11, ed.) in Milan and I explained everything to them. I explained to them that there was no permission for Pimenta to speak on behalf of Lazar. But they didn’t want to talk more about anything because they were very angry because they kept saying that she was the agent. But you can check everywhere, even on the Internet, that Pimenta was never my son’s agent. The “communication problem” was just that, because my son wanted to go to Inter, Udinese wanted to sell him to Inter, and Inter wanted to take him. Everything was okay, if it wasn’t for this “communication problem.”
So it is not true that there was a problem of money and commissions
“Look, we never talked about money with Inter. We never bargained on anything, we didn’t have the opportunity because the moment I explained that Pimenta was not the agent, automatically for Inter it was already closed and they were no longer interested, because, we don’t know why, they thought Rafaela Pimenta was the agent. I said “sorry, I’m sorry but it’s a mistake, if you have evidence about this thing okay, but since you don’t have it it’s not our fault.” I’m sorry, but we proved that we wanted to go to Inter and that we never talked about money.”
Do you blame yourself for anything in this negotiation?
“Nothing, because we had no opportunities to do anything, what mistake would we have made? I don’t know. I asked Mr. Ausilio where I would have made a mistake, to tell me. And he replied that he didn’t know who the agents were. So I retorted, “It’s not my fault, you could have asked.” And so at that point I was the one who said “We want to see the contracts, we want to see the offer with a written email and not just over the phone. We want to see the salary, the bonuses.” And instead we saw nothing written, no documents. Because they had sent everything to Rafaela Pimenta and they had made a mistake. The first time I sat in the Inter office, I said to Mr. Ausilio, “Look, I have never seen any contract so far, no offer.” So he printed it for me in that appointment, and I said, “There, now this is the first time I’ve seen these numbers.” And that was it, he said we had nothing more to discuss, he said Inter has 150 years of history, he made the Champions Final…. And I said, “Of course you’re right, but there was a miscommunication here, I’m sorry.”
But why did they act this way: if they wanted the player…
“I don’t know. I have no experience in these affairs, I am just a father who wants the best for his son. In Udine he plays, because he loves football: he surely wants to improve all the time and wants to play one day in the Champions League, but this is only possible if he matures with Udinese, playing better and better with Udinese. We don’t care about money: if we wanted it, we could go to Saudi Arabia. We want a career and Inter certainly was a good situation, but honestly…. It was not possible to do the operation. Maybe with another club next time. We have nothing to regret, because I could not have done anything else, since Inter did not want to talk to us. I said the same thing to Mr. Pozzo in Udine, who understood the situation. That is the whole truth, then of course the journalists, who have good relations with Inter, write and report one version, but that is not the truth. It doesn’t matter. My son is very happy in Udine and if we stay here, we will make him happy, no problem.”
So the player does not want to leave?
“We have a very good relationship with Udinese, with Mr. Pozzo, with Director Collavino and with the new ds Federico Balzaretti: we are all working together for the future and if Udinese will tell us that they have had an offer that they consider valid, we will talk about it with my son. If Udinese says yes, and we say yes, it will be the right decision to make, but he does not have to leave this year. He has 3 years on his contract and a future ahead to change clubs: when we find a perfect situation for all parties involved, for the club and for us, we will see.”
Someone, in the days when the deal with Inter had blown up, had written that another club was behind it….
“That wasn’t really true. We don’t have any club. We are in no hurry for the future-Lazar is only 21 years old, there is so much time. Against Juve he came in as a sub and did well and showed that he is focused: he is a mature guy, he has a good head on his shoulders and he does not want to betray the Udinese fans and of course the club that brought him to Italy and is making him grow. That’s also why it was important to tell the truth: big clubs have powerful communication and we don’t, but a false and wrong reconstruction that was damaging to us cannot pass to the public.”
