The Jules Kounde – Chelsea love/hate affair is just not dying.
The French centre-back was chased by the English side all through summer, who instead chose Barcelona.
The Spanish giants paid a hefty €50m fee for the ex-Sevilla player, while Chelsea settled for €38m-rated Kouliably.
For most, this would be the end of the story for this transfer. But supporters do not forget things so easily.
Kounde’s Instagram post was used and edited to taunt Chelsea’s stuttering start to the season.
The edit went viral on social media and was even reported by a national newspaper, which had not realised it was fake.
This prompted a response by the Chelsea fans a week later when on the 14th of September, they edited Thiago Silva’s Instagram story as a way to taunt Kounde’s bad form at Barca.
This edit again, fooled Twitter and went crazy viral.
Not even five days have passed since and we already have another Kounde-Chelsea news.
This time though, it can be reliably confirmed that no supporter or fan club has played dirty and in fact, this is a true story.
What started as an innocent tweet by Kounde turned into a spat between Chelsea supporters and the player.
Kounde’s first tweet comprised of just two sad emojis, which was probably to express disappointment at his home country’s loss to Spain in the EuroBasket finals.
France lost 76-88 to Spain, leading to the player’s tweet.
Blues fans were quick to latch on to this, joking that the Frenchman was disappointed at not joining the London club but going to Catalunya instead.
Another theme of replies that can be seen in the post is people sarcastically expressing concern and asking the player if his club hasn’t paid him yet.
Barcelona’s financial situation was dire this summer, and they were accused of not paying salaries to players like Braithwaite and De Jong last season, which was the reason for these comments.
Kounde could not be registered in time to play the opening game of the season against Rayo Vallecano because the club was unable to meet the league’s salary cap.
This situation did not allow them to register their new signing.
Kounde could have hypothetically had to leave the club for playing time, but Barcelona were able to activate some financial levers in order to register the new acquisition.
Chelsea follower and a social media influencer of Ghana, KalyJay latched on to this and ask if Kounde was another one of those players that the club refused to pay.
While most players ignore hecklers and haters and choose not to respond, Kounde is not one to take one sitting down.
Jules responded by “comforting” the tweeter and confirming that he had been paid, closing the conversation.
Kounde’s salary was a major talking point after the player chose Barcelona instead of Chelsea.
Jules chose Barca even though the London-based club offered a higher salary, meaning the player was considerably more convinced of Barca’s project than Chelsea’s.
According to reports, the French player settled for €6.5M/year, rejecting the higher €11M/year offer.
The salary would translate to an eye-watering €115,000 a week.
Jules handled the whole Twitter saga in a calm and controlled manner, much like his defending.
With plenty of time left in the season, we can guarantee that this will not be the last Kounde-Chelsea news we hear about.
