A Pair of Dubious Roma Rumors

By: Martha | December 19th, 2007

Rawr. Hot on the heels of the growing reports of the possibility of Levante Christian Riganò returning to Serie A with Roma in January, a story has suddenly emerged about Cristiano Lucarelli doing the same. Of course, since the story comes entirely from Lucarelli’s agent, Carlo Pallavicino, who admits there has been no contact whatsoever with Roma, it’s hard not to think he’s just reading the papers we are, and thought “Wait, Roma want a target striker for the second half? A big guy who has a history of piling up the goals in Serie A? I know one of those!” and contrived to throw his client’s virtual hat into the ring, hoping Rosella will take notice and give him a call. Which, really, is worth a shot.

Not only is he offering up Lucarelli for the Roma gig, but he’s also suggesting that his client would be willing to compromise on the issue of pay for the privilege of joining a club in contention: “I also don’t think that his salary would be a problem either and this could be the right time for the club and himself.” Good work, Carlo! No go sit by your phone and wait.

Far more amusingly, there’s also a rumor in La Gazzetta — who have been banging on about this for a while now — today about Inter planning a sinister swoop for Roma’s Alberto Aquiliani. This despite the fact that the boy was born and bred Roman, is already a crucial part of the team, has said he wants to stay at the club forever, and will cause the supporters will meltdown en masse if the club ever even considered selling him. According to the paper, the issue is Aquilani’s contract: He’s signed through 2010 and is currently making €750,000/season, and as part of contract talks, Roma have reportedly offered to more than double that, paying the youngster about €2 million/season. That, supposedly, is not enough, and if talks show the slightest sign of deteriorating, Massimo Moratti is poised to swoop in and do something dirty to seduce Aquilani over to the blue side of Milan.

Yeah. I’m sure Chris will have something to say about this when he feels up for a good rant, but barring some sort of spectacular disaster, Inter are going to be very disappointed.