Officially recruited on Tuesday January 7 by RC Lens, Pau Lopez will ultimately not be a Sang et Or player as the club announced this Wednesday January 8. Explanation.
It’s an incredible situation that supporters of Racing Club de Lens have experienced over the past 48 hours. While the latter had to mourn the departure of Brice Samba, the Pas-de-Calais club had formalized the signing of Pau Lopez to replace him. Just 24 hours later, the Artesian leaders informed the cancellation of this coming. However, all the lights seemed green.
Contractually, Pau Lopez is a player for Olympique de Marseille. However, this season, the Olympian club made the decision this summer to loan the goalkeeper to Girona in Spain. However, since August, the 30-year-old has only played one game. It was in the King’s Cup. The Girona staff places him as number 2 for championship and Champions League matches.
Documents lying around
The Champions League, precisely. This is the crucial point of the failure of this file. Engaged in this competition, the Catalan club has only included two goalkeepers on the list of players eligible to participate. However, FC Girona still has two European matches to play before completing the first phase: January 22 against AC Milan and… January 29 against Arsenal. Thus, if Pau Lopez had joined RC Lens today and by January 22 the starting goalkeeper, Paulo Gazzaniga, was injured, coach Michel would no longer have a goalkeeper in his European squad.
According to L’Équipe, despite the total agreement between the RCL and OM, yesterday at midday, Girona had not yet sent the final documents regarding the termination of the loan. As a result, the Iberian club was able to add this last condition of January 29 which Racing decided to refuse.
