WEST HAM have finally shipped out Said Benrahma and Pablo Fornals after the deadline day chaos around their moves.
Both deals looked set to collapse after West Ham failed to fulfil their side of Fifa’s Transfer Matching System (TMS) before the deadline, despite having signed all the paperwork.
Lyon released a scathing statement which accused the Hammers of a “lack of respect” and “incomprehensible behaviour”, which West Ham have completely refuted.
The Premier League side were angered by Lyon’s reaction to what has been described as a technical error.
Fornals, who attended West Ham’s deadline day draw with Bournemouth, has joined former Hammers boss Manuel Pellegrini at Real Betis in a £7million deal.
Benrahma meanwhile has finally joined Lyon on loan until the end of the season with a view to the move being made permanent in the summer for £17m.
In a message to Hammers fans, Fornals said: “I just want to thank you for these four seasons and a half and for the good memories.
“I arrived as a kid and became a man here and it was such a great pleasure for me to fight from relegation in my first season to become sixth in the league, to play a semi-final of European football with you the next season and to win a trophy.
“You’re always going to be in my heart.
“West Ham are massive, everywhere we go!”
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Speaking at a press conference held on Friday, Lyon owner, John Textor, said about Benrahma: “He was a target of ours several weeks ago.
“Things died a bit a few weeks back but the discussion of Said came up again owner to owner.
“I was having some conversations with David Sullivan at West Ham. I think David has been terrific to deal with, we had great conversations and everybody wanted to see something get done for the benefit of our club and the player.
“All that happened in the last several days.
“We reached agreement without great controversy and we processed the movement of the player into the club. Any impression this was a last minute deal – we should disabuse ourselves of that notion. This was a very normal courtship of the player.”
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