MONTREAL – Udinese forward Antonio Di Natale for eight million bucks?
It makes absolutely no business sense, says Joey Saputo.
The Montreal Impact owner didn’t mince his words when Di Natale’s name came up at a roundtable discussion with the Montreal media on Wednesday. According to reports, an MLS club has offered the 37-year-old Di Natale a two-year, $8 million contract.
Saputo, also part-owner of Serie A club Bologna, said he got a call from Di Natale’s entourage. But, according to him, there isn’t one MLS team interested.
“Di Natale is using MLS to improve his contract with Udinese,” Saputo told the media. “I’ll tell you clearly, honestly: no one has offered Di Natale four million dollars [a season] for two years. Guaranteed. No one in the league gave him that. He's just using that to try to better his offer. And the problem is that, again, a lot of people are starting to use MLS as that ‘you know what, there’s a lot of money available there.’ So we have to be very, very careful. Di Natale is not a profile we would go after, guys.”
One profile Saputo would – and did – go after is Alberto Gilardino. The 32-year-old striker joined Fiorentina on loan from China’s Guangzhou Evergrande last week, but the Impact were indeed among his options.
Gilardino accepted Montreal’s offer, which Saputo said was worth “a lot less” money than Toronto FC’s last year.
The hurdle came from Guangzhou, who the Impact were unable to come to terms with. “At the 11th hour,” Saputo said, Fiorentina and Gilardino made a deal. And a potentially “perfect” match was dead.
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“We’ve always said that if we get the right player at the right price with the right attitude, coming here for the right reasons, we will take a look at him,” Saputo said. “And we’re not going to go after players just for the sake of going after players because other teams are going after players. It’s got to make sense.
“It’s hard to replace a [Marco] Di Vaio not only for what he did on the field, but also what he did off the field, the attitude, the way he came to Montreal and what he gave the organization,” Saputo continued.
“And it’s difficult. And we thought that Gilardino was the right player.”
