Walter Sabatini explains that it was “the relationship between me and James Pallotta” that caused him to leave Roma.
The sporting director is now working with Inter, having left the Giallorossi in October last year and he says it was his relationship with the President which broke down.
“What didn’t work was the relationship between me and Pallotta,” Sabatini confirmed, speaking to Corriere dello Sport.
Walter Sabatini explains that it was “the relationship between me and James Pallotta” that caused him to leave Roma.
The sporting director is now working with Inter, having left the Giallorossi in October last year and he says it was his relationship with the President which broke down.
“What didn’t work was the relationship between me and Pallotta,” Sabatini confirmed, speaking to Corriere dello Sport.
“Everything worked at Roma because Roma was my life. Things were fine with Pallotta for a while, but less good after. At a certain point it was right that I change.
“My son has never forgiven me for making that choice, he goes to bed in a [Francesco] Totti shirt every night.
“I shared a silent feeling of love with many people, but I couldn’t do it with Pallotta.
“Totti? With Francesco’s curtain call we’re losing a technical and poetic idea of football. It’s not just that a champion is stopping, there will be pieces of play which go extinct because they leave with him, and that’s a blow for football.
“Now I think Totti must now find the strength to set the past aside and accept the idea that there’s something else in life, even if that’s difficult for him.
“Not least because, from what I’ve read into my conversations with him, he had a real, almost adolescent, desire to keep playing.”
Sabatini brought the likes of Radja Nainggolan, Kostas Manolas and Antonio Rudiger to the Lupi, but he was also grilled about some of his less successful signings.
“When you do deals for 300 players, you can have 10 who don’t succeed. Gerson will in time, he was born in 1997, he’s had his difficulties but he has the quality.
“Juan Iturbe was a victim of a decline which nobody could have seen coming.
“As for [Seydou] Doumbia, he’s not a bad player, the best goal of last season’s Champions League was the one he scored in London [the goal was against Arsenal, but actually scored in Switzerland in Basel’s 1-4 defeat].
“The time and the method [of bringing him to Roma] were wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”