Said Benrahma’s hopes of leaving West Ham to join Lyon have been given a lifeline after the French club’s CEO said FIFA had given the green light for the transfer.
Benrahma had travelled to France on Thursday to undergo a medical ahead of his expected transfer to Ligue 1, but disaster struck late on deadline day when it emerged that the clubs had failed to complete the deal in time.
Benrahma was due to join Lyon on loan until the end of the season and was expected to sign a permanent transfer worth more than £15 million in the summer.
West Ham issued a statement confirming that the transfer had not been completed on time, while Lyon hit out at the English club, accusing it of “disrespect” for the delay in concluding the deal.
However, Lyon’s general manager Laurent Prud’homme told a press conference on Friday afternoon that the club’s appeal to Fifa to have the transfer ratified late had been successful.
He told reporters on Friday: “[Benrahma] dreamt of playing for Olympique Lyon, so you can imagine how upset he was. His mother, his family is in such a situation.
“What we did was to start a procedure with FIFA to investigate what happened. We sent all the evidence that we had entered the data, we signed all the documents on time. We have screenshots showing when we entered all the data into the TMS system, it was exactly at 22.26, we were virtually on time.”
Prud’homme then received a message during the press conference. He added: “It seems that Fifa has just accepted the confirmation of the match, so our efforts are paying off at the moment. The French federation has asked the Premier League to give it seven days to accept. Our efforts seem to have borne fruit.”