09 July 2023 , 16:56
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Atlanta United midfielder Franco Ibarra has slammed former Fulham player Carlos Bocanegra after being loaned to MLS strugglers Toronto FC against his will and "out of the blue".
The Argentine, 22, was loaned to Toronto FC for the rest of the season on Wednesday but he has made it abundantly clear he does not want to move to the Canadian club, which is enduring a woeful season. Sitting second-bottom of the Eastern Conference, head coach Bob Bradley lost his job amid huge discord and friction in the dressing room.
Although Ibarra, a physical central midfielder, has been among Atlanta's most consistent players this season, he has paid the price for the club exceeding the limit of four under-22 initiative signings after the return of Edwin Mosquera from a loan spell in Argentina.
As a result, technical director Bocanegra, who played 110 times for the United States, struck a deal to send Ibarra to Toronto. But the player has been left raging at the way it has been handled, with no advanced warning that he needed to leave the club. He says he was also given no say in the matter.
“I’m trying to accept all of this,” Ibarra told The Athletic . “I have thousands of questions. But there’s no point in dwelling on this. That’ll make it worse for me. Carlos told me that he was going to close the deal that same night and that I had to go. I told Carlos that he didn’t have to close that deal. That I wasn’t going to leave Atlanta. I’m not going to that team.”
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“I was told that I didn’t need to change because I was already a Toronto player. That Atlanta had closed the deal. Carlos told me that he was really sorry. He said he needed to cut the roster down. I reiterated that I wouldn’t go to Toronto. It doesn’t benefit me at all from a football standpoint. It’s obvious where Toronto is at the moment versus Atlanta.
“I didn’t know when I had to leave for Toronto, where I’m going to live, what I’ll have to do with my visa. I was completely in the dark. I told Carlos that I understood that there are rules. I get it, but I’m not going to Toronto.
“I’m hurt and it bothers me how you’ve done this and where you’re sending me You can’t call me out of the blue to tell me that I have to move to another country. If you tell me a week ago that there’s a problem, that’s different. But instead, I found out last night that [Bocanegra] had to get rid of one of the four U-22 players.”
Ibarra, who represented his country at the youth level, finds himself in an incredibly awkward position, out of favour with his parent club while also speaking bluntly about the prospect of joining the chaos that has gripped Toronto.
The team – which has the highest payroll in the league – has lost five MLS games in a row, including Saturday's 1-0 home defeat to St Louis City and they hope Ibarra, who has made 17 league appearances this year including 15 starts, will help rescue their campaign, but at this stage it is unclear if he will make himself available for selection.