Borussia Dortmund have accused Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of doing the dirty on them as part of his ploy to join Arsenal.
The Daily Mirror reports the stinging rebuke from the club’s chief executive, Hans-Joachim Watzke, who clearly doesn’t think much of how the Gabon striker got his dream move to the Gunners.
Aubameyang completed a £56million transfer from the Bundesliga outfit to the Emirates on deadline day last week, ending a month-long saga in which he didn’t endear himself to Borussia Dortmund.
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In fairness to the new Arsenal frontman, he had the honesty to own up to his bad behaviour, posting a message on Instagram in which he said “sorry for everything that happened over the last month”.
But that hasn’t impressed Watzke, who had to put up with similar behaviour last summer from Ousmane Dembele when he wangled a move to Barcelona.
“I laid it on the line for the squad: the next player who does something like that will fail miserably,” fumed Watzke in an interview with German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
“The next player who tries to put us under pressure by withholding performances or even going on strike will not get a pass and will instead sit in the stands. They are all aware of it. This is now a public statement. Following Dembele and Aubameyang, there is now an overriding interest for the club - we need to get a better structure into our squad again.”
Asked why he had not made Aubameyang see out the terms of his contract, Watzke replied: “Because we had the impression there will be no new start for him [at Dortmund]... not with the fans, not with the team. Too much had been damaged through his behaviour.”
Meanwhile Olivier Giroud, the man who was sold by Arsenal to make way for Aubameyang, has spoken to Metro of his disquiet at being forced out of the club he loved.
“The fact is that the coach wanted to recruit a new striker and with Aubameyang’s signing at Arsenal, there were three top strikers, and that’s why I decided to leave,” said the Frenchman, who made his first league appearance for Chelsea last night in their 4-1 humiliation at the hands of Watford.
“It made sense for me to take a new direction in my career. There was a bit of disappointment, even though I spent five wonderful years there.”
