Albion to report agent in Cech row
Friday 22nd January 2010, 11:58AM GMT.
Angry Albion are set to report an agent to UEFA after claiming he touted Marek Cech to French club Rennes without permission.
The Baggies will lodge a complaint with European football’s governing body, after Cech’s brother claimed he had been offered to Rennes by a French sports agency.
Albion insist they have had no contact with Rennes and are determined to keep Cech, who started their 2-2 draw at Newcastle on Monday.
The club are upset that the unnamed agency attempted to broker a deal without their permission with Cech having 18 months left on his Hawthorns contract.
Head coach Roberto Di Matteo said: “First of all, what has come out is total rubbish. We have never spoken to Rennes and we have never said to anybody that the player is up for sale.
“We are going to report this French agent to UEFA, because he had no permission to do whatever he did.”
Cech’s brother, Richard Cech, was quoted in the French media claiming the Baggies and Rennes were in advanced talks over a transfer for the Slovakia international.
But Di Matteo said: “Marek hasn’t come to see me. We haven’t had any approach or contact with any club and we didn’t give permission to any agent.
“If you look at the stats and see how many games Marek has played you will see that he is in our plans.”
Di Matteo remains keen to strengthen his squad as they embark on a hectic spell of matches in the next six weeks.
But the Baggies boss is conscious that next week’s transfer window closure will have a limited impact as the club are more likely to deal in the loan market, which remains available domestically until March.
He said: “We are looking to strengthen the squad a little bit, because we have a very busy period coming up and we will need players to be able to sustain that.
“The domestic loan window doesn’t close for us so we can always dip in whenever we need to but, if we want to do something internationally, we will have to do it before the window shuts.
“We will keep all of our players unless we want to get rid of someone.”
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