Atlanta United’s contract offer, which successfully lured forward Emmanuel Latte Lath away from Middlesbrough in the winter transfer window, was reportedly worth £70,000 per week.
That’s according to a story from Teesside Live on Thursday, which may explain why the Ivorian international was eager to join the MLS team.
Middlesbrough sold the 26-year-old centre-forward to Atlanta United in early February for a club and MLS record transfer price of up to £22.5 million.
A significant contract update for Emmanuel Latte Lath at Atlanta United has emerged.
It was always understood that a move to the MLS would result in a hefty compensation increase for Latte Lath. However, the actual amount he would receive with his new club across the pond was uncertain, with talkSPORT reporting that his new weekly salary would exceed £40,000.
However, a recent claim from Teesside Live suggests that Atlanta United’s contract offering to Latte Lath was actually worth £70,000 per week.
The article also states that the player’s representative had been pressing for a move for some time prior to his eventual sale, with Middlesbrough imploring Lath to stay with the club until the end of the season and propel them to the Premier League.
Boro reportedly pledged to provide the Ivorian new terms if he helped Michael Carrick’s team reach that target. However, Lath’s officials are believed to have made demands that Middlesbrough was unable to meet.
That then allowed Atlanta to outbid Boro with a £70,000-a-week contract for their prolific goalscorer, with the club believing that rejecting those approaches and potentially keeping an unhappy player in their ranks was too risky, so it became about getting the best price for him.
If Middlesbrough believed that maintaining Lath would undermine squad cohesiveness, then the mid-season sale was warranted.
Fans never want to see their favourite star sold during a promotional campaign. Indeed, for many Boro supporters, the winter window sale of Latte Lath was a watershed point in their season, with a sizable portion of the fanbase viewing it as an indicator that the club was waving the white flag on their promotion hopes this season.
However, if Carrick and the club believed that keeping Lath beyond the winter transfer window would pose a greater risk of derailing their play-off drive than selling him would, Boro’s choice to cash in is clearly warranted.
| Latte Lath’s Middlesbrough career stats (all comps) – per FotMob | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Appearances | Goals | Assists |
| 24/25 | 31 | 11 | 3 |
| 23/24 | 36 | 18 | 1 |
Carrick told Teesside Live that he does not feel Boro’s inability to finish in the top six this season was due to the mid-season transfer of Latte Lath. “You can gaze at almost anything.
“In football, you lose players at times, whether it’s due to a transfer, injury, or suspension,” he explained. “That is part of it.
We have lost players over time, and that is just the way it is. You cope with it and move on. I believe we have a decent enough squad to handle that.
“I don’t think it’s a one-player game. It is about all of us together as a group. In the end, we didn’t get enough throughout the season to meet our goals.”
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