An amusing turn of events materialized in the run to the transfer market deadline day on August 31. Lazio’s final minute deal with Eintracht Frankfurt for Filip Kostic blew into pieces, bringing an end to the elaborate transfer saga that has been one of the Biancocelesti’s focal points in the recent transfer market.
Both the clubs were unable to boil down to a transfer fee for the left winger, who was supposed to replace Inter-bound Joaquin Correa.
Kostic was keen on seeing the move go through in order to experience a new playing arena and Frankfurt demanded €10.3m including bonuses but Lazio only offered €10.2m in their initial offer – an offer that was apparently sent to the fake email address provided by the German club, as per reports from Italy.
Kostic’s agent Fali Ramadani was made aware of the situation and reportedly sent screenshots of the wrong email address to Kostic, which infuriated the player and prompted him to abandon Frankfurt’s 1-1 draw with Arminia Bielefeld, wherein he refused to train with the club before the match.
However, Frankfurt have now lashed back at the reports that they deliberately prevented Lazio from moving in for the Serbian ace.
According to the Germans, the email for Kostic’s offer was sent to the wrong email address with a missing ‘K’, thus writing ‘eintachtfranfurt.de’ instead of ‘eintrachtfrankfurt.de’.
The letter ‘K’ is not originally used in the standard Italian alphabet, along with J, W, X & Y. However the pronunciation of ‘K’ is used very often in words such as chiesa, cuore and chianti.
It seems like a typo is what caused the problem.
Lazio sporting director Igli Tare spoke to German outlet BILD and said: “Six or seven days ago I already informed Markus Krösche (Frankfurt’s sporting director) that we would like to get Kostic. We were then asked to make a written offer. We confirmed this by email, as requested. Then it was publicly stated that there was no offer. “
With both clubs pointing fingers at each other, one thing is for sure: the transfer offer for Kostic was never received by Die Adler and Lazio will have to wait another year to make a move for him.
The 28-year-old’s Frankfurt contract expires in June 2023.