The Jermaine Jones transfer saga took its latest turn late Saturday night, as Chicago Fire coach Frank Yallop admitted that the club has made a big offer for the USMNT midfielder.
As for the claims that Jones has rejected the contract, a notion that the player himself denied earlier that day, Yallop said they haven’t heard anything of the sort from the 32-year-old.
Speaking after Chicago’s 1-1 draw with Columbus, Yallop spoke candidly about his desire for Jones to join up with the Fire. He also said the club is prepared to go in any number of alternative directions.
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From MLSSoccer.com:“I spoke to Jermaine yesterday and wanted to put forward our club and what we thought of him and we would love [for] him to join us,” Yallop told reporters at Toyota Park.
“So I’ve done that, he hasn’t officially turned down our offer because we’ve not had anything back, so we’re still waiting. It was a big offer, Andrew [Hauptman, club owner] stepped up and put out a good contract offer, he’s thinking about it and we’ll probably find out about it in the next couple of days.”
While the 46-time capped Jones is the Fire’s priority signing this window, Yallop and technical director Brian Bliss have a number of potential signings lined up should their offer to the German-American come up short.
“We have a few guys we have lined up in a sort of domino effect, if you like,” said Yallop. “If one doesn’t go, then we have to move to the next one. We have interest in some players and I’m sure we’ll get something hopefully done in this window for sure.”
If you follow Jones on Twitter, or read our earlier post, you’ll know the midfielder disputed both the contraction rejection and the reported dollars with the following, “Good Morning my fans! The offer of chicago fire honors me! There are rumours in the news. But all the figures mentioned are not the truth.”
You’ll also know that he’s been hanging out with Charlie Sheen and Chuck Liddell.