Jerry Akaminko will not play for Real Salt Lake City, as the move hoped for has broken down.
Club general manager Craig Waibel said the Ghanaian defender’s Major League Soccer talks with his side could not reach fruition. Having began training with the club a few weeks ago, Akaminko had hoped to be part of the team’s plans when the league begins next month.
“We couldn’t agree to terms. We definitely wanted him and he definitely had a lot of interest being here, but in the end, MLS contracts are interesting — especially on a world market for a player like him. There were terms in the end that we just couldn’t get to.”
Waibel was speaking to The Salt Lake Tribune: “It’s disappointing, but the good news is we’ve already found three very good players. Unfortunately, now we’re at the number three, not the number two. But we’re confident. We found three guys we really enjoyed … We’ll find a fourth.”
Various reports had noted how well the Ghanaian had fared but in the end he was a victim of his own cosmopolitan and well-travelled career. “We thought [Akaminko] was good. He really enjoyed being with us. It’s just a bummer that we thought we were going to be able to get it all worked out, but we couldn’t.”
Akaminko was released by his Turkish side Eskisehirspor after he found it hard to make a quick return from niggling injuries. He has not been the same since June 2014, when he injured himself while playing for Ghana on the eve of the last World Cup.
