Cats finally cut their ties with £33k a week dud Djilobodji
AWOL STOPPER IS OFF WAGE BILL
SUNDERLAND have reached a severance agreement with Papy Djilobodji, allowing them to plan for the January transfer window with greater clarity.
Djilobodji and team-mate Didier Ndong were sacked by the Black Cats this autumn after being absent without leave from pre-season training. Although an agreement was quickly reached for club record signing Ndong to leave the club, there had been the prospect of Djilbodji taking the club to court in midNovember until a settlement was reached.
Djilobodji asked to leave Sunderland when the club were relegated from the Premier League in the summer of 2017, but the best he could do was a season-long loan at Dijon, with the Wearsiders paying two-thirds of his reported £33,000-a-week wages.
When Sunderland were relegated again, to League One in the summer, the 29-year-old stepped up his efforts to force through a transfer.
Djilobodji took unpaid leave in July while he tried to find a new club on the proviso that he returned in August in a satisfactory physical condition. He did not report to the Stadium of Light until September, after the vast majority of European transfer windows had shut until the new year.
On his return, the centre-back was put through a fitness test where his scores were unacceptable to his employers. It was the last day he was seen on Wearside.
Ndong’s circumstances were slightly different in that he stayed away longer, and did not have permission to take unpaid leave during July. Both players were sacked as soon as they showed up at the club, and were not paid while AWOL.
The severance agreement with Ndong entitles Sunderland to compensation if he finds a new club in either of the next two transfer windows. If the Gabon midfielder is still out of work in October 2019, the Black Cats have reserved the right to sue him to recover some of their investment.
It would be a surprise if Djilobodji’s departure was not on similar terms.
Neither player is able to join a new club until the transfer window reopens in January.
Djilobodji joined from Chelsea on a four-year contract in the summer of 2016. Despite his only appearance for the Blues coming as an 89thminute substitute in a 4-1 League Cup victory at Walsall, Sunderland paid £8m for the Senegal international.
His 24 appearances for the club included 17 largely unimpressive league starts.
Manager
Jack Ross had no intention of playing Djilobodji again even if he had taken the matter to court and won, but the agreement gives him greater clarity to plan for January.
When the Football League approved owner/ chairman Stewart Donald’s purchase of the club in May, it was on the proviso that he greatly reduced the club’s wage bill.
Higher earners such as Jack Rodwell, Wahbi Khazri and Lamine Kone left by one means or another, but the cost-cutting did not go as far as Donald had hoped, with the likes of Lee Cattermole, Bryan Oviedo and Aiden McGeady still at the Stadium of Light.
Now Djilobodji and Ndong are off the wage bill, Sunderland have greater flexibility to sign players in January, though there may need to be further departures before Ross can sign the central defender and centreforward he is thought to be targeting.