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Andros Townsend is in a bizarre situation after leaving Luton Town for Antalyaspor this summer, signing for the Turkish club but currently stuck in limbo as they have been banned from registering players.
The England international was ready to start the Championship season with the Hatters when he was given a short-notice offer by Antalyaspor, having just a day to decide on whether he wanted to move.
He took the offer, signed a contract, but he did so after a transfer ban came in on the club, meaning he is not allowed to be registered.
The 33-year-old is training with his new teammates, but cannot play or even be registered and admits that he doesn’t really know how the situation will be resolved.
‘I’m stuck in Antalyaspor just training, I don’t know who owns me, I don’t know where my contract is,’ Townsend told BBC Five Live. ‘I’ve had a crazy couple of weeks.
‘Three days before the start of the season at Luton, I get a phone call from Antalyaspor saying “we have an offer for you but you’ve got 24 hours to respond because we’ve got a transfer ban coming and we need to get you in before the transfer ban”.
‘No time to think about it, I managed to negotiate to be involved in the first game for Luton, then it was literally all signed and all done.
‘We missed the deadline by a couple of hours. The contract is signed [but] they can’t officially register me, they can’t announce me because they have a transfer ban.
‘Every time I ask them, they say “the contract is signed, you’re our player”. But nothing has been announced.
‘Honestly, I’ve no idea what’s happening and what’s going to happen. I keep getting told “tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow”. Every time I ask what’s happening they say “don’t worry you are our player, you’re contracted to us, you can’t go anywhere”. I’m just here.’
Antalyaspor’s ban on registering players runs until January 2026, however, they are confident they can resolve the Townsend situation.
A club source told the BBC: ‘We came to the end of the transfer of Townsend, but we could not issue the player’s licence due to the transfer barrier.
‘We’ll pay the debts. We’ll finish the Townsend transfer soon. We will complete this transfer before the transfer season. We also want to make other transfers.’
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