Willian has decided to leave Arsenal this summer despite having two years remaining on his playing contract, and his agent Kia Joorabchian has opened up about the situation.
The Brazilian is said to have agreed to leave without any severance package from the Gunners, gifting the Gunners a sizeable saving, and the midfielder is now expected to find a new club to join.
His agent insists that his player ‘willingly’ agreed to terminate his contract, before taking a parting shot by claiming that Arsenal convinced Willian of a project that simply ‘wasn’t there’.
“He terminated his contract and he did it willingly, he’s probably one of the first players to do so,” Kia said live on TalkSPORT(via CaughtOffside).
“Previously players, especially at Arsenal, have sat their contracts out, but he wasn’t one of them.
“When he joined, he sincerely joined because he was very much at the centre of Arteta’s thinking.
“Arteta make several presentations to Willian and made it clear he would be the focus point of how he would build the team around him.
“Willian had an offer from Chelsea to extend for two more years, but he wanted three years and he made the move. Unfortunately it didn’t work out for him.
“He was getting very heavily criticised over why he made the move here, but none of the things that have been suggested have not been the case.
“I spoke to Arsenal. I had a meeting with Arteta and Edu, they explained this has not gone well and I spoke to Willian.
“I don’t think it benefits any part to just let someone sit there for the sake of sitting there. When things go wrong, both sides should consider the fact it’s gone wrong and you need to find a solution.
“I think Willian did the right thing, he went for the project and the project wasn’t there.”
It does seem strange how large the gulf was between his playing level for Arsenal from what we saw at Chelsea, but we seem to have had a lucky escape considering we (possibly foolishly) gave him a three-year deal despite his age, as he had every right to stay and cash that salary.
Can you think of any other players who have agreed to cut up their contracts and give up such rewards?
Patrick
Kudos to Willian for what he did, he was a massive failure at Arsenal and i dont know why but he has done us a massive favourby cancelling his contract. Im flabbergasted that someone who has failed and was milking the club actually did the decent thing. A pity more aren’t like that.
If MA is now going for youth (based on current transfers), why the hell would he want to build a team around Willian anyway?
I don’t think MA knows who or what he wants!
He wanted short cut but he met with reality
He’s telling the truth. There is no project and Arteta is an imposter, damaging our club. That is the factual reality. Arteta is damaging our club. I don’t know if it is deliberate or not but something is clearly wrong.
Yes I think Arteta is deliberately damaging the club. Because we are such a threat to the likes of City and Liverpool and co they send in Arteta to destroy us internally.
(sarcasm)
The club has been under steady decline since 15years ago.
Arteta may not be the man for this huge job but he is just like me and you, we all want the club to do well.
He is trying his best but I feel the best isn’t enough as there is no result to show for the hardwork.
So he may take a step down and let someone else try it out.
After NLD, if we are not up in 12th or better position he should go
On a different Willian article from Yesterday we had 2 commenters:
@ Wiggy and
@Chapo…
Said that it’s all a hoax and some of us were just Naive and blind to believe that Willian just tore up his contract.
It was all Edu trying to save face but in reality he had paid willian off under the table.
Not going to jump into any conclusion on the Willian saga until the financial report of our club comes out.
But, many great players have given up huge rewards in the past in exchange for something else they valued more than money and glory.
A bunch of great players stuck with Juve when they were relegated for administrative corruption. Gerrard, Totti, Giggs, Maldini gave up glory and rewards in their careers. Messi willingly went all the way to extend his Barca journey. Depay agreed to a 30% pay cut even before he kicked a ball for his new club and a few other Barca players too.
p.s: Special thanks to Kia for letting our fan base know of the non-existent “project”.
“Probably foolishly” Patrick?
Now who’s taking the p@@s??
I criticised this move from the day he was acquired. Arteta is really destroying Arsenal. He is giving out exorbitant wages for underperforming players. The wage bill is too high whilst we languish rock bottom of the log. Arteta is not building the team but destroying it
Agree with what you say but the only red flag I saw about the signing was the contract (length and wages were too large), because his previous season at Chelsea was very decent.
I think we can now say Willian’s poor form at arsenal wasnt to do with the contract, as he’s giving it up for nothing, which suggests it was more to do with Arteta’s tactics / playing styles than the player himself
It’s agent talk (no project). Could have been that Arteta sincerely wanted to build his team around Willian – he certainly picked him often enough – but for whatever reason things just didn’t work out. Maybe when people say we started last year without a creative midfielder, MA was expecting that to come from Willian.
Willian was a quality player for Chelsea but maybe he came to arsenal to be the main man for a few years at the end of his career, but I’m not sure he was ever the type of personality to be the main man (I do think he had the footballing ability in his hay day) – if that’s what we tried to do, it would be a mistake on Arteta’s part (reminds me of the Gallas situation)
Sad it didn’t work out because I always respected Willian’s ability. Says a lot about his character that he was willing to give up the money when there was nothing stopping him from collecting it over the next couple of years. All the best to him.
I still do not believe Willian and his agents have walked away, leaving a cool 20M on the table.
If someone from the club could just tell us the full back story: how much money was or is to paid to Willian and agents; how much will be paid to subsidize Willian’s wages at Corinthians.
As for Edu role in the entire affair, there has to be a conflict of interest.
It’ll take some time for the financial details of the deal to be available for the public. But, there’s at least an interesting rumour behind the player moving to Brazil. Check the comments section in the most recent JA article about Kia.