Tuesday, 13th August, 2013
Hannover's game of high-stakes poker with Stoke City over striker Mame Biram Diouf has continued, with the Bundesliga outfit backtracking on an agreement to sell the player.
Stoke officials Tony Scholes and Mark Cartwright were in Germany last week and believed, after consulting with their club to increase their bid, that they had secured Diouf for a deal which would see €7m paid at once to Hannover, with a further €1m after the striker played 15 games.
So confident were Stoke over the deal that they even visited Manchester United for discussions over Diouf's percentage of future sale clause that the Red Devils inserted in an agreement to sell the Senegalese to Hannover, and had the 25-year-old over for a medical on Friday.
But Hannover have now put a stop to the deal, with not being able to replace Diouf the concern. The striker, for his part, had been willing to drop his wage demands from €3.9m per year to €3.4m per year, to move to the Potters. However, he refused to give the green light, having not yet met with manager Mark Hughes.
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"Mame told me he had not spoke to Stoke's manager yet", Hannover sporting director Dirk Dufner told Kicker, adding: "We have no replacement."
And club president Martin Kind adopted an equally hardline stance.
"He fits in well and has shown how important he is.
"We can make the decision ourselves. That is what the most important thing is. We want to keep him this season and extend his contract if possible."
Kind though will not comprehensively rule out Diouf's sale.
"I have learned that you cannot rule anything out. But I am relatively certain."
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