Kilmarnock have claimed former Norwich City striker Kyle Lafferty asked for 4x his previous wage packet to stay on at Rugby Park.
Lafferty – who has featured for big clubs like Norwich City and Rangers – scored 13 goals in as many games after arriving at Kilmarnock in February but was unable to keep them in the Scottish Premiership. After Kilmarnock’s relegation to the Championship, it was announced Lafferty would leave the club.
Former Norwich City star Kyle Lafferty has left Kilmarnock. (Photo by Stanislav Vedmid/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
In a newspaper interview, Lafferty criticised the way Kilmarnock dealt with his exit, but the Rugby Park club have strongly hit out at the former Norwich City forward: “The club is not in the habit of making public statements on matters around player contracts, preferring instead to conduct our business in private.
“Kyle’s comments to the newspaper require us to make our position clear. Following the conclusion of the play off against Dundee, we entered into negotiations with players we wished to retain for the 2021/22 season which included Kyle. We received a series of figures from his representatives which were four times higher than the sum he received towards the end of the 2020/21 campaign.
“At this point, we informed Kyle and his representatives that there was no possibility of agreeing to those terms, which would have had a monumental impact on the allocated first team budget for the season. Following further discussions and both parties remaining miles apart, it was clear that no deal could be struck and in order to continue our planning for 2021/22, talks were brought to a close.
“Kyle told the newspaper: ‘that contracts were offered to individuals and given a few hours to make a decision.’ This is simply not true. Every player offered a contract for 2021/22 was given a period of several days in line with a deadline set by the club to decide whether they wished to accept our offer.”
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