The Bundesliga side had agreed a €6m transfer fee, with the player having even undergone his medical. However, the German club pulled out shockingly.
However, the player’s agents say they received an ultimatum to accept an new offer including a lower commission of 7%, down from the 10% expected, while their player failed to receive a written proposal from the German club after a verbal agreement was reached on Thursday morning. His agents, as a result, “felt under pressure” to agree before Hoffenheim pulled out of the deal.
”Indeed, there was an interest from Hoffenheim. Strasbourg, his club, forced Alexander not to leave for training on Sunday to speed up negotiations with Hoffenheim,” Jenhis Djiku, a brother of the player who is his agent opened up to SportsworldGhana.com exclusively.
“Already for us, it was not the right way to do it because I wanted to dissociate sport and non-sport.
“Concerning the negotiations with Hoffenheim, as the player’s representative, I wanted to do the negotiations directly and alone with the sporting director. But, in the end, the agency that represented Hoffenheim and the club of Strasbourg kept on entering the negotiations to force us to accept quickly.
“The negotiations were very long and costly while I had to defend the player’s interest. He thought that the deal would be done quickly. And the negotiations lasted four days, until Tuesday evening.
“The player agreed with the Hoffenheim club as Strasbourg made it clear to us that Alexander should not go free like Anthony Caci, and that he would not join the team for the moment. We realized this and went to Hoffenheim on Wednesday afternoon.
“We went to finalise the deal, including the agent’s commission.
“The figures are wrong; I have always asked for a fixed percentage without increasing anything, on the contrary, I have been open and cooperative to decrease the percentage in a reasonable way. My last official offer was a 7% commission from the club, whereas most commissions are 10% in France and even up to 20% abroad.
“When you know the history of this agency with this club, it seemed obvious that we had opposing interests.” He concluded.
With Strasbourg agreeing to sell the Ghanaian defender this transfer window, Djiku, who has a year left on his deal, will now have to find another destination.