Juventus are increasingly glad they terminated the contract of Mohamed Ihattaren, as Samsunspor claim he failed to turn up to sign for them. ‘He made unacceptable demands.’
The creative midfielder is only 21 years old, but has already been through the wringer in a career that promised so much and now risks petering out.
A product of the PSV Eindhoven academy, he joined Juventus in August 2021 for circa €2m and was immediately loaned to Sampdoria, but barely managed any training sessions.
Ihattaren kept returning to the Netherlands over personal matters, including some run-ins with the law, and managed six games while on loan at Ajax’s youth team.
Juventus decided to cut their losses and terminate his contract by mutual consent last week.
He was meant to sign for Turkish team Samsunspor, but then didn’t turn up when expected.
President Yuksel Yildirim announced the deal was over, largely due to the behaviour of Ihattaren’s agent – who is also his father-in-law.
“We had agreed a low salary for the first two months to get into shape and he accepted that, but then his agent asked to change the terms. He also wanted a percentage of the sell-on fee and made unacceptable demands.
“I told him, he’s a problematic player, why should we start giving him money before he has even played? He didn’t accept and left.”