Charlton Athletic prematurely lost £3.7m man to Laurent Blanc & Bordeaux – Alan Pardew was furious | OneFootball

Alan Pardew was left fuming with Laurent Blanc and Bordeaux after the sale of Souleymane Diawara from Charlton Athletic in the summer of 2007.

Charlton Athletic had been a stalwart in the Premier League up until their relegation in 2006 and then, as the Addicks prepared to launch a promotion push to immediately return to the top-flight, they were hamstrung by the frustrating sale of defender Souleymane Diawara to Girondins de Bordeaux – something that enraged manager Alan Pardew.

Under the management of Alan Curbishley, Charlton had established themselves as something of a force in the Premier League, following their promotion in 2000.

In seven seasons in the Premier League, Charlton had flirted with European qualification on a couple of occasions, finishing as high as seventh in the 2003/04 season.

The departure of Curbishley in the summer of 2006 brought about a very tough 2006/07 season in which Iain Dowie was replaced by Alan Pardew mid-way through the campaign, but the south Londoners couldn’t avoid their eventual 19th place finish, despite striker Darren Bent hitting 13 goals in the league that season.

Charlton wanted to kick on post-Curbishley and that summer, following the appointment of Dowie, saw them bring in plenty of seemingly exciting transfers, such as Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Djimi Traore, Amdy Faye, Scott Carson and Andy Reid.

The stellar addition of the summer, though, was Senegalese defender Souleymane Diawara, who arrived from Sochaux for a fee believed to be worth £3.7 million.

However, the Dakar-born centre-back would make just 23 league appearances for the club before being sold to Ligue 1 giants Bordeaux in the summer of 2007, almost immediately derailing, or at least majorly impacting, their ambitions to get straight back up.

Alan Pardew was furious with Souleymane Diawara’s sale to Bordeaux

Alan Pardew was tasked with taking Charlton straight back up and they would have believed they had a squad more than good enough to compete for at least a top six finish.

Some key players did leave, such as Hermann Hreidarsson joining Portsmouth on a free transfer and Dennis Rommedahl being sold to Ajax, but the picture and the state of the squad looked clear as August came, with plenty of new additions of their own, including the likes of Paddy McCarthy, Chris Powell, Chris Iwelumo and Luke Varney.

An inevitable consequence of relegation would be that key men would depart, but Charlton managed to get some outgoing deals done nice and early, helping with their planning, and for hefty fees, too, as Darren Bent moved to Tottenham Hotspur for £16.5 million in late-June and Luke Young joined Middlesbrough for £2.5 million in July.

Therefore, any other major sale would appear to have been unplanned and that would explain just how irate Pardew became over the departure of Souleymane Diawara to Bordeaux.

In August, Bordeaux, who were coached by 1998 FIFA World Cup winner Laurent Blanc at the time, and had finished sixth in Ligue 1 the previous year, winning the Coupe de la Ligue, managed to poach Diawara from

The Valley for a fee believed to be in the region of £2.6 million – representing a £1.1 million loss on Charlton’s original investment in just 12 months.

Less than a week prior to the deal being confirmed, Pardew had hit out at Blanc over the Frenchman publicly declaring Bordeaux’s interest in Diawara: “I always think it’s incorrect for technical directors or managers of other clubs to talk about players who are under contract elsewhere. It’s unsettling and unfair.

“Souleymane Diawara has become an important part of what we’ve done here in pre-season. It would be a blow if we lost him.”

However, lose him is what Charlton did and Pardew continued to launch public outcries over the deal, blaming Diawara’s agent for his role in the deal and even suggesting that legal action could follow as a result: “I didn’t want to lose Souley. His agent played a massive part in his departure and I’m currently considering whether to report him to the Football League and the relevant authorities.”

Charlton struggled to replace Souleymane Diawara

As the final few weeks of the transfer window went by, Charlton initially found it difficult to replace Diawara, perhaps highlighting just how unplanned his sale had been.

A day after his move to Bordeaux was confirmed, Charlton brought in forward Izale McLeoud and midfielder Zheng Zhi from Milton Keynes Dons and Shandong Luneng Taishan respectively.

They also signed another midfielder, Therry Racon from Guingamp, and former England international right-back Danny Mills, before finally signing a centre-back, Sam Sodje on loan from Reading, on the final day of the transfer window.

The disruption to Charlton’s season saw didn’t necessarily see them start too slowly, despite Diawara leaving just days before an opening day 1-1 draw with Scunthorpe United.

They eventually succumbed to a mid-table finish due to a poor second-half of the campaign, and there will always be regret over what could have been had they had the defensive depth and original squad that they had planned for throughout the campaign.

Diawara had become a key man for Charlton under Pardew in the Premier League, starting the majority of games in the second-half of the season, and his quality showed through after his sale as he helped Bordeaux win the French title in 2009 and then helped Marseille achieve the same feat a year later.