Florian Kamberi has signed a contract with Scottish Premiership side Hibernian, rejecting a summer transfer to League One club Sunderland.
Sunderland missed out on signing Florian Kamberi this summer.
The Swiss striker shone during a loan spell at Hibernian in the second half of last season, scoring nine goals in 14 league appearances for the Edinburgh side to catch the eye of new Black Cats manager Jack Ross.
The Sunderland Echo reports that Sunderland were prepared to pay a seven-figure sum for Kamberi. Instead, however, he pressed ahead with a permanent move to Hibs, who had agreed a purchase clause of just £100,000 when he arrived on loan from Grasshopper Zurich in January.
And Kamberi has made it pretty clear that his heart was always set on Easter Road rather than the Stadium of Light.
“It didn’t interest me because it was League One. Even if it’s a big club I don’t want to play in a small league,” Kamberi said in quotes reported by the Daily Record (live blog, 8.46am).
“I want to play in the first league and I had a chance to do that here with Hibs, so it was clear that Sunderland wasn’t an option.”
There are some out there who will argue that the third tier of English football might be on the same level as Scotland’s top tier but Kamberi obviously does not agree.
Sunderland have gone from the Premier League to League One in the space of a year via successive relegations and, as the Kamberi situation shows, the further you fall down the divisions the more difficult it is to attract quality players.
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