Chelsea blocked Abakar Sylla’s move to Gent, according to Tuesday’s edition of Het Nieuwsblad.
The Ivory Coast international left Club Brugge for RC Strasbourg for €20m in July 2023. Since then, he played 51 matches of which two of them were from this season. Both of them were in January.
Sylla was looking to leave the Ligue 1 side, owned by BlueCo, who also own Chelsea. Gent came forward to bring him back to Belgium in the recently concluded window.
Last weekend, all parties reached a verbal agreement for the 23-year-old to join Gent on loan until the end of this season. He previously worked under Gent manager Rik De Mil at Club Brugge.
The defender was on his way to reunite with his former coach and was keen on a move to Belgium. This was before Chelsea intervened.
According to the newspaper, the Blues wanted to send Sylla to FC Nantes to help them sign Tylel Tati.
Liam Rosenior’s side were keen on signing Stade Rennais’ Jérémy Jacquet. Last weekend, Liverpool made concrete advances and have agreed a deal for him to arrive at Anfield in the summer.
This saw the Club World Cup winners immediately shift their focus on Tati. On Monday, L’Equipe reported Chelsea had accelerated their efforts to sign the 18-year-old defender.
Their plan was to secure his services and send him on loan to Strasbourg. The transfer didn’t go through as the player didn’t accept Chelsea’s plan.
Het Nieuwsblad now claim Nantes only wanted to do business with Chelsea for Tati if they could sign Sylla.
Therefore, the Premier League side forced Strasbourg to block their player’s move to Gent despite the verbal agreement. This was a clear blow to the Jupiler Pro League side.