Aaron Ramsey may not be an Arsenal player much longer but the midfielder confirmed that he will never leave the club to join Tottenham.
Aaron Ramsey finds himself in something of a limbo as he makes a decision on his future, but we now know wherever he ends up, it won’t be in N17 despite some Spurs fans wanting ‘revenge’ for Arsenal signing Sol Campbell 17 years ago.
Asked if he would ever join Tottenham, Ramsey simply said “No!,” before adding, “I was captain [against Sporting]. I’m delighted with that. The boss has named me one of the five captains so I have an important part to play in the dressing room.
“I had the opportunity to captain the team tonight which is always a privilege, to captain this football club. Hopefully, there will be a few more opportunities.”
Arsenal withdrew Ramsey’s contract offer earlier in the season and the Welshman also admitted he isn’t entirely sure why that happened. Perhaps he should speak to his agents about the matter.
“Hopefully somebody will come up and tell me why [the offer was withdrawn],” Ramsey said. “I’ll accept that if there’s a reason. When the time is right, I probably will find out but that hasn’t happened yet.
“There is no contract on the table at the moment so there is nothing for me to consider or whatever. We all know that the contract was taken away off the table. I’m not sure exactly why because a few weeks before we sort of agreed and I was ready to sign.”
Perhaps a clue lies in the actions of Ramsey’s agency, Avid Sports.
Avid Sports & Entertainment Group have had a hard time staying out of the limelight in recent months. While Ramsey’s contract negotiations were going on, the agency kept teasing Arsenal fans with hints at updates, before announcing contract extensions for Dundee FC’s Kenny Miller, or similar.
Then, when talks broke down, Avid were quick to highlight on Twitter that it was all Arsenal’s decision and that Ramsey wanted to stay.
Of course, they failed to explain why the midfielder delayed signing the contract for such a long time in the first place.
Then, in a pretty embarrassing move, the group ‘liked’ the below Twitter post:
Sad to see that a player are great as Aaron Ramsey is represented by a bunch of kids with internet access. Fix up @avid_se. pic.twitter.com/lC86xDNBNy
— Adeeb (@_____adeeb) October 11, 2018
On the one hand, this is clearly a joke post. If Ramsey fanboys on Twitter want to retweet and like it as a bit of banter, there’s no harm.
However, Avid are supposed to represent the player. It clearly wouldn’t be acceptable for Ramsey to like posts about how his manager has greasy hair and got cyberbullied by Ben Arfa, so it’s bizarre that the agency representing him doesn’t see a problem with doing so.
If I was Ramsey, I’d seriously consider my representation after all this.
From the contract stand-off backfiring to the Twitter posts giving away details of how negotiations are going, to childishly getting involved in the above nonsense, it’s all a bit of a mess.