Lazio president Claudio Lotito has confirmed that midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic has asked to leave the club this summer. The 29-year-old is reportedly on the verge of completing a move to Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal, but speaking with Tag24, Lotito denied any knowldge of the reported interest, but did confirm the player looks likely to leave the club:
“Milinkovic and Arab offer? I know nothing, All done? No no, I don’t know anything is done, you know more about it than I do. Someone is telling you things, I don’t know if they are fibs or truth. At the state I have not signed anything.”
“I don’t know if there is the offer from Arabia, they told me there is an offer and it is worth a lot to the player and less to the club. The player has asked to leave since he has been at Lazio for 8 years. It is not a problem of relationship with the club, it is a problem of the mind. It was not a problem of money with us, he wanted a change of scenery.”
“Why does he want to leave? I don’t know if it’s a problem of stimulus, if one wants to go to Arabia the stimulus is only money. But you have to ask him.”
I tried until the end to keep him, but when someone asks me for something personal and his own to leave what can I do? We were willing to renew the contract and increase it. I have a good relationship with him, but in the end the player decides what he wants to do in life. He phoned me begging me to let him go.”
“This offer has not concretely arrived, when the contract is signed and the payment is made it will be done. As long as he is a Lazio player he will go to the training retreat, when he is no longer a Lazio player he will go where he has decided.”
“I did not speak of a fair offer, because if we waited for the right one we would not sell him for those figures. I made a commitment to the boy, that if a normal minimum offer came for Lazio he could go. The offer is lower than €50 million, a little less. This is an act of faith that I am making to the player for a commitment that I made.”
