Inter Milan president Massimo Marotta reveals an error on the path of the Italian club which led to star striker Keita Diao Balde’s missing Senegal’s game against Equatorial-Guinea.
The former Barcelona winger is a regular for Senegal’s national team and was one of one of key players invited for the final Nations Cup qualifier in Malabo.
However, the 23-year-old was surprisingly nowhere to be seen at the Taranga Lions’ camp amid widespread reports of a fall out with gaffer Aliou Cisse behind the scenes.
Interestingly, the erstwhile Monaco marquee buy appeared in the provisional list of invited Lions foreign-based contingent.
Inter Milan initially insisted that the Senegalese Football Federation invitation arrived late.
Hours following the former European Champions’ statement, Aliou Cisse moved to play down the issue, saying lateness of Keita’s call-up was on his part.
The 42-year-old Lions’ tactician said: [perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“I have club presidents who call me to reach a consensus so that players arrive in camp one day late. We always experience that with the clubs. But here it’s our fault and we will not hide it. Next time we will try to do better. We tried to convince them to release him, they did not want to. They pointed to the regulation saying it was late.”[/perfectpullquote]
Some reports in Italy claim the letter was sent to Inter’s previous mailing address while others suggest it arrived on time but landed in the spam folder before the club’s social media team realised it.
Flames of this story had already cooled following Senegal’s narrow triumph over E-Guinea before it took a new twist on the back of Inter Milan president Massimo Marotta’s admission that the gaffe was on the part of the Serie A outfit’s side.
“It’s a mistake on the part of our digital manager who manages our e-mail account. We cannot fire our digital leader because he is our Social Media Manager,” Marotta says, stating the matter was discussed between him and playmaker.
