According to Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas, Yoann Gourcuff is ready to accept lower wages, to secure a move to Arsenal.
The 27-year-old has not lived up to his early promise, that saw the Ligue 1 team pay €22 million for him in 2010 and weekly wages of €100,000. The club are now looking to offload the France international and Aulas has insisted that the former Bordeaux man will not be allowed to go out on loan.
“Can you see us paying part of his salary for him to play against us with another French club? We’ve never considered that and it would even more stupid now than it was a fortnight ago,” Aulas told L’Equipe.
“All that I know, if I understood correctly, is that he was ready to lower his salary to go to Arsenal, but that’s not the same thing.”
Gourcuff has two years left on his current deal and Aulas has not ruled out the possibility of selling him. He tweeted last weekend that the midfielder “is not for sale, but he can be bought”, while also handing the player’s agent a non-exclusive mandate to negotiate a transfer.
Also followed by Monaco and Atletico Madrid, who have long been linked with him, Gourcuff has another two years left on the deal he signed when he moved to the Stade de Gerland from Bordeaux three years ago.
“We can’t change the contract,” he said. “The only solution is to extend it. If the amortisation is done over eight years when it was planned over five, it becomes less expensive. But we’re in a quite unfair system: if there’s someone to criticise for his salary, it’s me. I signed it, that contract, with his agent.”
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