Former Manchester City midfielder, Yaya Toure has revealed that he almost signed into Arsenal in 2003 under former manager Arsene Wenger.
He was ready to join his brother Kolo at Arsenal, who had already secured contract with the Gunner previous year after a successful trial.
However, a slight issue in his paperwork later delayed Yaya’s permanent move to the Gunners.
In his interaction with Ferdinand, Yaya expressed deep regret on the failed move as he agreed on a subsequent move to Ukraine before later on his career returning to the Premier League where he became a club legend with Manchester City.
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“Yeah, no, because in the beginning, I think the problem was the paperwork because at that time, when I remember, it was… You have to play 75% in the national team if you don’t have the passport, European passport, or you have to have a European passport to play in England and that was the path,” he explained to Ferdinand regarding why Wenger didn’t secure his signature.
“Arsene was willing to let me go back to Belgium to carry on for, I think, one more year or two years to get the Belgian passport because at that time, I was not playing in the national team, A team.”
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“And in my mind, I was like, it’s time for me to go abroad, test myself and try something different,” he explained.
“And it was from that period, I’ve been sold to Ukraine. And that’s when I started to get a bit frustrated because for me, it was a bit of a fail because I didn’t make it, but in the end, it was that difficult because my mind was divided. I didn’t want to get a passport. To get it, I wanted to be able as well to play for my national team.
