Yaya Toure turned 31 a week ago. It was a pretty good couple days for the Ivory Coast midfielder. His side won the Premier League for the second time in three years and he attended a huge party to celebrate the victory. But apparently no birthday wishes were sent to Toure from the club's owners, leaving the 24-time goal scorer feeling disrespected, which could now put his future with the club in question.
It all started with Toure’s agent Dimitry Seluk. Seluk expressed Yaya’s disappointment in a 10 minute phone interview with Sky Sports. In summary, Yaya received a cake on the plane to the club's post-season tour, where a very mediocre "happy birthday" was sung by the flight attendants and Samir Nasri. Toure didn’t even take off his headphones in the video, and clearly looks unenthused. Seluk later said the club didn't even acknowledge Toure and that most clubs call players on their birthdays. He even mentioned how Brazilian great Roberto Carlos received a Bugatti on his birthday.
Seluk continued saying, "What happened at his birthday meant the club don't care about him. It was proof. They can say whatever they want, 'Oh we like him but we forgot.' …when you win the title on May 11, a day later you go to Abu Dhabi and on May 13 you have a big party to celebrate the title and nobody comes to Yaya to say, 'Happy birthday', what more do you want?"
We do know the club sent Yaya birthday wishes on their twitter page on May 13:
— Manchester City FC (@MCFC) May 13, 2014
And, at first, Yaya seemed to be distancing himself from the drama:
— yaya toure (@Toure_yaya42) May 20, 2014
Quickly after that, Yaya tweeted, "Jokes aside. Please do not take words that do not come out of MY mouth seriously. Judge my commitment to @MCFC by my performances." The tweet was later deleted followed by a tweet that backed Seluk's statements:
Everything dimitry said is true . He speaks for me . I will give an interview after world cup to explain
— yaya toure (@Toure_yaya42) May 20, 2014
Manchester City have yet to comment on the situation and it seems that we are going to have to wait until after the World Cup to solve this birthday drama. Roberto Carlos’s agent Paulo Teixeira spoke to BBC World Service regarding Seluk refering to Carlos's Bugatti, "I don't see why this is coming out," Teixeira said. "It's nothing to do with the contract of the player. Yaya Toure has got enough money today to buy 10 or 20 Bugattis. This is about egos.”
"If Yaya's agent comes out with this, it's because he understands his player, what his player needs and maybe he's trying to make the management of the club do something for the player."
Seluk said those claims weren't true and said the situation has nothing to do with money. “They don't know that money can't buy relationships – no Sheikh can buy a relationship. This isn't about money or a new contract, it's about human relationships and City have shown they don't respect him. I repeat, this is not about money. In fact, he would take less to return to Barcelona."
This isn’t the first time Seluk and Toure have felt disrespect. Toure said in a recent interview with BBC he was not regarded as one of the best players in the world because he hails from Africa. He continued to say, "Proper recognition has only come from the fans," he said. "I don't want to be hard and I don't want to be negative, but I want to be honest."
It's one of the weirder stories to occur in this young offseason, but fortunately for City, they have quite some time to fix their "mistake."
