Yaya wants out of City - because no one remembered his birthday

Reporter

May 20, 2014 07:33 pm

He's an unstoppable colossus on the field who earns a handsome £220,000 ($463,687) per week wage at Manchester City.

But despite his seemingly tough exterior, it looks like Yaya Toure has a pretty fragile ego.

You'd probably think that picking up a second English Premier League title might be cause for celebration, but the Ivorian midfield general reportedly wants out of the Etihad Stadium - because no one wished him happy birthday at the club's title celebration party last week.

Poor baby.

Toure's agent Dimitri Seluk was quoted in several media outlets saying: "There's a big possibility Yaya will leave this summer. Yaya is very upset.

"What happened at his birthday meant the club don't care about him. It was proof."

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Seluk's extraordinary rant/threat on his client's behalf didn't end there.

He said: "'They can say whatever they want, 'Oh we like him but we forgot'. Forgot? About Yaya? The player who helped you to be two-time Premier League champions? The guy who helped you win the FA Cup and League Cup?

"In a normal team, his team-mates and club would at least give him good wishes. But when you win the title and two days later you have a big party to celebrate the title and nobody comes to Yaya to say happy birthday, what more do you want?

'If a player like Yaya went to Liverpool and they won the league for the first time in 24 years, Yaya would be a god in Liverpool.

"But at City, Yaya is no hero. He's nobody. That's how the club make him feel. He's very upset and he started thinking about leaving the club. And he will leave if things carry on like this.

"We're not doing this for more money. We probably can go for less money to another club. If they think they can buy everything, they are wrong. I think these people don't care. Only stupid people would want Yaya to leave."

In fairness to the club, Yaya probably forgot to check his Twitter...

Or he was probably upset by Samir Nasri's awful singing on the flight to Abu Dhabi.

Even when presented with the above evidence, Seluk refused to back down.

"He got a cake but when it was Roberto Carlos's birthday, the president of Anzhi gave him a Bugatti," Seluk told the BBC.

"I don't expect City to present Yaya with a Bugatti, we only asked that they shook his hand and said 'we congratulate you'. It is the minimum they must do when it is his birthday and the squad is all together.

"I hear one newspaper has written that City congratulated him from Twitter but this is a joke. It is better they don't put anything on Twitter if they are not saying anything to him.

"The club's owners ate a 100kg cake after winning the Premier League this season but when they and the players were all together, none of them shook his hand on his birthday. It shows they don't care about him.

"Of course Yaya is upset about this. If this happened to you as a journalist in the BBC and nobody shakes your hand, you will say bye-bye and go to work for somebody else. It is normal."

While Toure took to Twitter and played down his agent's words, the midfielder later backtracked and posted this update: