The Athletic’s Phil Hay has confirmed that former Leeds United player Jean-Kevin Augustin won’t be returning to the club.
Unfortunate news has emerged recently involving Leeds as they have been ordered to pay the full transfer fee to RB Leipzig for Augustin, despite his loan deal never actually becoming permanent back in 2019.
The French striker was signed on loan by Marcelo Bielsa but only managed to make three appearances. There was an obligation to buy in his loan deal following Leeds’ promotion to the Premier League – something that Leeds failed to honour, which has led to several court cases finally coming to this recent conclusion.
However, despite Leeds having to now pay a transfer fee, Hay has confirmed on The Phil Hay Show that he won’t become a Leeds United player and will instead be staying with his current club, FC Basel.
He said: “So FIFA’s decision was to make him a free agent, he went to Nantes in France, and he’s now with Basel in Switzerland. He’ll not be coming back to Leeds, he’s not their player, they cannot make any money out of him in that sense.”
Is Augustin Leeds' worst ever signing?
Yes!
No!
TIF Thoughts on the Augustin situation…
Following the ruling in RB Leipzig’s favour, it will be a huge blow for Leeds as a club to have to fork out millions of pounds on a player they never got the benefit of having on a permanent basis, but with it being in the original contract, it always seemed like this was an inevitable outcome.
Given that Augustin only made three appearances for Leeds and was subsequently never recalled to play for them after the break in play back in 2020, it seems Leeds were never actually keen or bothered about him joining them permanently.
However, given the fact that Patrick Bamford seemingly can’t stay fit for a prolonged period of time, having another striker could well have been useful for Jesse Marsch, and he may have been able to get a better tune out of Augustin compared to Bielsa.
All in all, this is a matter that those concerned will be delighted to see the back of, even if at a heavy cost for the Whites.
This crazy unjust decision is just another example of the bizarre and childish hatred of Leeds just for being the best club in the world. Oh well, charge us 18million for nothing, dock us 15 points, take away our golden share, whatever you do we just keep marching on and there’s nothing you can do except cover yourselves in yet more dishonour.