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When Leeds United signed RB Leipzig striker Jean-Kevin Augustin nobody expected the saga to end with a court case at the hands of FIFA and the Frenchman to end up at Nantes before a solution was reached.
Now, almost one year since his signing, RB Leipzig have submitted an official claim to FIFA as revealed by Phil Hay at The Athletic.
FIFA confirm to @TheAthleticUK that RB Leipzig have tabled a formal compensation claim against Leeds United over Jean-Kevin Augustin:https://t.co/YKrJxFt3XW
— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) December 8, 2020
“FIFA can confirm that it has received a claim from RB Leipzig against Leeds United. The matter is currently still being investigated and consequently we cannot provide any further comments.”
Leipzig seek compensation for the deal brokered which had Augustin sign for Leeds if promotion was achieved at the end of the season, with the fee agreed standing at around £18 million.
Meanwhile, Leeds did not extend the Frenchman’s loan deal beyond the end of the loan contract which expired before The Whites were officially promoted on July 25th. Therefore, the club’s officials believe that the clause no longer stands as promotion was achieved after the expiration of the contract.
In the middle, Augustin was caught and swept to the side without a club. Bielsa sent him back home after the COVID-19 break as he was unsatisfied with his fitness, only playing 48 minutes in total across his loan spell.
this was a backgrounder to the case and the arguments involved, written after Augustin joined Nantes in October:https://t.co/Rvn6zChyvd
— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) December 8, 2020
The 23-year-old managed to find himself a free agent before signing for Nantes in Ligue 1, where he has now been excluded from the first team due to poor fitness, with the head coach, Christian Gourcuff publicly calling him out on it.
“We have now left him out of team training so that he can reach an acceptable level of fitness. He is following an individual fitness regime this week with Cyrille Moine [fitness coach] and that will still be the case next week,” he said.
“We integrated him, but we saw that he was not at a sufficient level. His lack of pre-season has penalised him so much that he can not be competitive.”
Now, we will soon see how this saga will end as FIFA investigate the claim and make a decision, but a timescale isn’t fully known. One to keep an eye on.