Agent: No offers for Badelj

If you’re a Fiorentina fan, you’ve spent the past year listening to Dejan Joksimovic—the agent of Milan Badelj—talk about his client’s desperate desire to leave Florence, preferably for a Champions League club like, uh, AC Milan (snicker). Even thought the midfielder is signed through 2018, his representative’s insistence on a move has grown increasingly shrill as we approach the January window, and it’s been pretty much accepted that the Croatian international is on his way out of town, with his eventual destination the only remaining question.

With Inter Milan, AS Roma, and Chelsea joining the Rossoneri in their quest for the midfield boss’s signature, there’s certainly no shortage of options. While a reunion with Vincenzo Montella seemed most likely, Inter also seemed to have a decent chance, with the London club as a dark horse.

Except not. With the window open and deals going down all over Italy and everywhere else, Joksimovic hasn’t fielded any calls. In a recent interview, he admitted that neither of the Milan clubs had the cash right now to meet the €10 million valuation that the Viola have placed on his client, citing the lack of cash on both the red and blue sides of Milan.

Of course, Inter have publicly declared their intention to invest somewhere around €100 million this January, and their rivals don’t exactly seem cash-strapped either. Rather, it seems that nobody’s in a hurry to buy a player in January who’ll be available for less either in the summer or on a Bosman next year.

This may feel a bit familiar to long-time fans, as it almost exactly mirrors the Riccardo Montolivo saga a few years back. Perhaps that’s a deliberate ploy from Joksimovic, because if we have to sit through another one like that, everyone will be ready for Badelj to get out.