Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has made clear that Liverpool's £50 million ($66.2 million) offer for Ismaila Sarr was rejected because of when it arrived, not because of any ill will towards the winger. The Reds tabled their bid with just five days left in the summer transfer window, and Palace turned it down without hesitation.
Sarr, 28, had also attracted interest from Galatasaray, but once again found himself unable to leave Selhurst Park. The fallout was messy: his agent, Diomansy Kamara, publicly criticised how Palace handled the situation, and Sarr himself later removed all references to the club from his social media accounts.
Parish has now given his side of the story in an interview with The Athletic, relayed via The Mirror. "It's unfortunate with Ismaila, but that wasn't really a situation that was of our doing," he said. "A club (Liverpool) came in and, with the amount of money they bid, they couldn't seriously think in that market it was going to get done at that level, and then they didn't come back in for him. If you're selling players for £90 million ($119.2 million) and then you want to bid us half of that for the replacement, it's fine, you can do it."
He added that timing was the real issue. "I'm not criticizing anybody for doing it. But it's not going to happen. You could understand Ismaila would have liked to go and if it wasn't five days before the end of the window and the money was right, then we would have tried to facilitate it."
Parish Hits Back at Agent Criticism
The Palace chairman didn't hold back when addressing the public comments made by Sarr's representative. "I don't care what (Kamara) thinks in the context of accusations against us. If any football club gets a bid for their top scorer five days before the end of a transfer window, that's going to be a difficult deal to get done."
"I would say to those representatives that the good ones would be managing those expectations with the player and not making it everybody else's fault. It's their job to get that bid earlier," Parish said. "They get paid by the player and the club and are there to help everybody oil the wheels. It doesn't help anybody when you go in the media and make unfounded accusations."
A Frustrating Season for Sarr
Sarr finished last season as Palace's top scorer with 21 goals in all competitions and followed that up with a strong FIFA World Cup campaign, scoring four goals and providing an assist. This season, however, an ankle injury has restricted him to just two substitute appearances for Palace, though he was still named in Patrick Vieira's first Senegal squad as head coach.
