Manolis Siopis has confirmed he made a huge financial sacrifice to leave Trabzonspor and sign for Cardiff City in the summer.
The midfielder has grown to become a firm fan favourite in his short time in the Welsh capital and is probably one of the first names on the team sheet for Erol Bulut. The Greece international was earmarked as a key summer signing and it is clear to see why.
Cardiff have craved a player with his bite, work-rate and tenacity in the middle of the park since Aron Gunarsson's departure in 2019 and as a result, City's other midfield players appear to have gone up a notch, too.
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But the move to Wales was complicated. Siopis had one year left on his contract at Turkish club Trabzonspor and Cardiff were under an EFL transfer embargo which prohibited them from paying fees for players. It meant that if Bulut was to get his man, he would have to make himself a free agent.
The negotiations between Siopis and Trabzonspor were protracted and at times, despite the player's desire to come to Cardiff, a deal looked to be in the balance, with chairman Mehmet Dalman characterising it as "50/50" at one point. And Siopis has finally spoken out about a story which rocked Turkish football in the summer.
"I told [Trabzonspor] that it was my dream (to play in the UK). I watched the Premier League and the Championship and now I’m here," Siopis said. "Erol gave me the opportunity to come here. But if Erol wasn’t here then maybe I wouldn’t be. I gave two (months') salaries up to leave. I told them to keep it to allow me to leave. It was my dream to come here.
"If I don’t feel like I have motivation to play at one club, then I am done and I cannot play there. I had this opportunity to come here with Erol Bulut and I took it."
He added: "I didn’t take two months’ salaries. I left that money and asked them to please let me leave. It’s a big story, what happened there. It’s not so easy to leave a club when they want me.
"They said they would make a new offer, a new contract. We don’t have a deal. I said I didn’t want it. They made a new offer and I said no, and the new offer is very big. For them it is disrespectful and I understand this. But I had done everything there. The championship, the Super Cup, I was done there. I had no motivation any more.
"The fans there loved me and when they saw it they were so angry. But no one understands. I was two years there with my family and [my kids] didn’t have school in English language. It was so hard for my family. I gave everything for the club. My style is like this. That’s the sort of person I am."
Turkish news outlets were fascinated by Siopis' exit. Turkish Newspaper Haberturk stated that Siopis had to pay a whopping €242,500 (£207,000) to exit his contract and his agent had to waive an eye-watering €257,500 (£220,000) he was due from the club.
Siopis joined fellow Greece international Dimitrios Goutas in the Welsh capital and the defender spoke about quality of life playing a big part in him and his wife wanting to move to Cardiff. Siopis also had similar concerns about his family out in Trabzon.
"The first thing I have in my mind, after the first offer they made, I was done," Siopis added. "I spoke with my family, my wife was already tired because the first year we were there, we had my daughter. After, we had my baby. It's difficult for her.
"I put everything in my mind, about the football and my family. We had a problem with the school for my daughter, so I spoke with my agent to see what was going to happen.
"They put it in the social media and they put me against the fans of Trabzonspor. All the fans then came against me. But I don't care what they say. The most important for me is what I want to make for my career. This is how I choose every opportunity for my career.
"I had my target to leave. I don't care what people say in social media, it's not true. But if you bring me and offer, I don't accept and you push me to sign a new contract with a new offer and I say also no, then why? How are you giving me motivation to play for you?"
Thankfully, the saga is over and he has adapted to life in Wales and the UK very quickly. As he mentioned previously, Bulut, with whom he worked at Alanyaspor, was a huge factor in getting him to Cardiff, but Siopis is ambitious and told the manager he wasn't coming without a serious ambition in mind.
He is under no illusion that Cardiff, who currently sit in seventh place ahead of the game at home to Norwich City this weekend, should be pushing for the play-offs.
"Before I came, I spoke with Erol and said I wasn’t going to come to make one good season," he said. "My target is to win. My target, I told him, to go to the play-offs. You must put a target and you achieve this. We have this target and we are going well.
"I think we will do better in the future. The most important thing is that we continue in this way, game by game, we build something the last three weeks, against difficult teams. We missed a little bit up front but we don’t score chances easily. I think it’s because we are a new team, but step by step we will fix this."
Siopis, of course, knows Bulut more than any other player, having played under him previously at Alanyaspor, where they enjoyed a stellar season before he manager was picked up by Turkish giants Fenerbahce. If it's one thing Siopis can tell City fans about the manager, it's this: He's a winner.
"He is a winner. Everywhere he goes, every club, he makes something. At Alanyaspor, we make the best season in history of the club. We made the final of the cup, we got to Europe. He then went to Fenerbahce."
"He has changed a lot. He has changed the way he builds the game from the back, the build-up. When we worked at Alanyaspor, we didn't have this style, now he tries to put three players at the back, the right-back comes inside (to midfield). If you want to make a step forward, you have to change."
