Napoli striker Arek Milik was interviewed by Polish website sportowefakty.wp.pl and talked about his near transfer to Roma, which ultimately fell through.
The Polish attacker had undergone medical examinations with the Giallorossi after being frozen out by Napoli — however, the two clubs ultimately failed to reach an agreement.
“My fate was in the balance until the last hours of the transfer market,” began Milik.
”Too much has been said about me and the truth has not always been told, so I’d like to clarify. Napoli wanted to renew my contract and told me: either sign or you’ll be sold, so I decided to go elsewhere, to try something different.”
”My agent was looking for a club and there was various interest and talks but the pandemic complicated some things.”
“Which clubs? I don’t want to mention names, but I know that a transfer requires several agreements, though, I gave my approval. It was the clubs who couldn’t find an agreement, so I ended up remaining in Napoli.”
“Roma? I had the medical examinations and everything was fine. The club even released a statement, but I don’t want to say which team I was closest to except that it was an Italian club.”
Milik then addressed the controversy surrounding fines that were levied by Napoli against him for unauthorised publicity.
The attacker did an advertisement for a restaurant that he owns in Poland last year, which was a violation of his contract with the Partenopei.
“Us Napoli players have structured contracts so that 100% of the image rights go to the club.”
”Perhaps it would be an issue, but it’s not something that would derail a transfer. This thing could be resolved within a few hours,” he concluded.