DI SANTO'S 15TH MONTH AT SCHALKE 04

Schalke on 25th of July, 2015 signed Franco Di Santo from Bundesliga rivals, Werder Bremen after activating a release clause in the player's contract.


The former Chelsea player left Bremen on Saturday 25th in the morning and after passing through a medical examination, he was officially announced as a Schalke player in the evening, in time to link up with his new teammates for a three-day training camp from Sunday.

Di Santo signed a four-year contract with the Gelsenkirchen club having exited Bremen, whose director of sport, Thomas Eichin was critical of the way his agent treated them. The 27-year old had only a year left to run on his contract in Bremen. Several attempts were made by Bremen to extend that deal had been made, but Eichin said Di Santos' agent kept them waiting unnecessarily.

"He promised and it was agreed upon that he would let us know early enough on his decision if he would like to stay with us or not," Eichin told Bremen supporters at the Weser Stadion. "Now everything has happened very, very quickly. Anyway, I am anything but impressed with this behavior."

Bremen eventually were unable to prevent the Argentine from leaving, since the conditions of his clause were met, but his switch right in the middle of pre-season training was not the way it was planned. Bremen fans present at an open day urged Eichin to sign Claudio Pizarro, who was free after exhausting his deal with Bayern Munich. The Peruvian is one of many candidates Eichin says he will now take a closer look at.

Di Santo, whose contract is to end on the 30th day of June 2019, has gladly used 15 months with Schalke 04. He has appeared for the team 29 times, of which he started 14 times while scoring two goals and making an assist.