St Johnstone boss, Simo Valakari, has left the door open for a second bid to bring Roman Eremenko to McDiarmid Park.
The Perth head coach has revealed that the fact the Finnish great did not demand a big salary to make the switch to Saints ended up counting against him when it came to the SFA’s hearing into his prospective move.
There is nothing the club can do to appeal the ruling.
But Valakari may yet look into reviving his interest in the summer transfer window.
“Of course, we cannot do anything about the rules,” he said. “They had their reasoning why they did it.
“The reasons were his age, the league where he played and his salary. They wanted it to be bigger.
“It was an 18-month contract.
“The only thing we could have done anything about was the salary.
“But the boy wanted to come here and prove everyone, to use the opportunity and that was taken away from him.
“There is no right to appeal.
“But I know he would have helped us – helped our players on the training ground and in games.
“I saw Roman playing all of last year, I saw him training with us for one week.
“It would have been very interesting for the fans to see him playing – someone who has played at the very top level.”
Tough conversation
The Tuesday afternoon telephone call to break the news to the 37-year-old, who has starred for the likes of Dynamo Kiev and CSKA Moscow, was a tough one for Valakari to make.
“I’m very disappointed for him,” he said.
“I called him after the hearing. He was buzzing about flying over but then I had to deliver the bad news.
“He was so professional. He understood it and said: ‘These are the rules, the reasoning and thank you for the opportunity, good luck and I will be following you.’
“That was his response, even though it was hurting him a lot.”
On not closing the door completely, Valakari added: “Yeah. And he knows. He said: ‘I will keep training and working away’ and we said we would keep in touch.”
Kimpioka bids
Meanwhile, Valakari has no doubts that bids will come in for Benji Kimpioka before the transfer window closes.
It is understood that there is interest in the player from at least two clubs in Europe, as well as in Israel.
Valakari didn’t want to elaborate on which of his players had been the subject of recent bids, confirming only that there had been more than one.
But he believes it is inevitable that concrete offers will soon come for his top scorer, who will be out of contract in the summer.
“With Benji, it’s logical,” said Valakari.
“We have known all the time – scoring 11 goals. You watch him and see his qualities.
“We knew that no-one would come in at the start of January but that it would be the end of the month when some teams see: ‘We need a striker now’.
“Or they see that it’s the end of the window and there are only a few months of the contract left and maybe they think they can get a little off the price for him.
“I can almost guarantee that there will be something.”
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