Hartlepool United's sporting director Darren Kelly clarifies stance over wantaway midfielder

Sylla became the subject of controversy at the Suit Direct Stadium in the final month of the League Two campaign having missed the club's trip to Grimsby Town over the Easter weekend where manager John Askey would suggest the French midfielder ‘didn't feel as though he was in the right mental state to play.’

Sylla returned for the Easter Monday draw with Stevenage and would continue in the defeats to Newport County, Salford City and Crawley Town before being left out of the squad again for the final two games of the season against Barrow and Stockport County.

And it was following the club’s official relegation from the Football League, despite their win over Barrow, where Askey would take aim at Sylla, and one or two other members of his squad, over their attitude.

“If people don’t want to play then I would prefer them just to say they don’t want to play,” Askey revealed to The Mail.

“I’ve met some of the most selfish individuals I’ve ever met in football. Whether that’s society now and people are getting a little bit more selfish I don’t know, but that’s why we’re in the position we’re in because there’s some people who just think about themselves.

“They’re not the type of people we need in this football club and they’re not the type of people I want to work with.”

Askey added on Sylla in particular: “It doesn’t help one little bit.

“I hope he gets what he deserves. He thinks he deserves a lot, so we’ll see.”

Sylla, it’s understood, refused to travel and play for Hartlepool against Grimsby on Good Friday, having also had disagreements in training in the build-up to that fixture, after, as Kelly has revealed, the club declared they would be taking up the option to extend Sylla’s contract at the Suit Direct Stadium.

The 29-year-old joined the club last summer under previous manager Paul Hartley on a one-year deal with the club holding the option to extend that contract by a further year.

And despite the club struggling in League Two, Sylla became one of the standout players for Pools in the second half of the campaign which persuaded the club to take up that option ahead of the 2023-24 campaign in order to protect their asset.

But, as The Mail understands, having attracted interest from the Football League and abroad, Sylla was keen to avoid his contract being extended in order to leave the club for free this summer – something which Kelly has now gone into detail over.

“It was me who was dealing [with the situation],” Kelly explained in a recent club interview.

“Mo had an option in his contract that we activated. It wasn’t long after I came in because Mo started to play and his performances were excellent and his agent came to me speaking about contract extensions and things like that, which was no problem.

“Low and behold he played a couple of games and I went to the agent and effectively said ‘we will be activating the option because you’ve signed a contract at the start and there’s an option here that we’re going to activate. If it’s the worst case [scenario] and we’re in the National League, you’ll be with us in regards to helping us get back.’

“I think every supporter will tell you, Mo, when he was on the pitch, was absolutely fantastic for the team.

“I know of interest [in Mo], and Mo made it clear that he didn’t want to play for the club in a couple of the games, and this is where a lot of the discussion came on.

“Mo didn’t want the option activated. I said to Mo, through his agent, that we’d sit down at the end of the season and we’ll talk this through. To be honest I thought he would have been pleased, but obviously he didn’t want it activating.

“I said to him then that we’ll sit down, talk it through, but what we effectively need is for you to give us your performances on the pitch and give your 100 per cent for the football club because we want to stay in the Football League.

“The performances on the pitch were unquestionable, I think he was great, but through them performances he gained a bit of interest.

“So, as a football club, and me within my role, I’ve got to protect against that. If I don’t activate the option, he goes to somebody else who’s then got a good quality player. My job is to support the football club’s needs, especially with contracts and with players coming and going.

“At that time he’s effectively an asset to the football club. So it was a case of we got to the end of the season and Mo made his things clear.

“I knew there was interest, I know there were people speaking to the agent, and, again, I had to protect against that. If anybody wanted to buy Mo, they’ve effectively got to pay us a fee to do so.”

Kelly added: “I feel as though we’ve done our job.

“John managed the situation fantastically well – we got Mo on the pitch, yeah it was tough to do so, but we got there with it.

“The problem we have now is; in football your character follows you and unfortunately with Mo this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened, which is a shame because every time I’ve spoken to him, through a translator, he was great.

“It was a very difficult scenario, but I had to make a football decision that was for the benefit of the club and if there were any clubs interested they'd have to come to me. There were a couple of clubs with interest but when they’ve done their due diligence, they haven’t come back to me yet.”

With movement on Sylla’s future having seemingly stalled, the Frenchman remains part of Askey’s squad ahead of their return to the National League.

However, with the players and staff having returned for pre-season training at the beginning of the month ahead of the pre-season fixture schedule, The Mail understands Sylla was not part of the opening week of training.

While talks may, perhaps, still be ongoing between the two parties, it seems unlikely that Sylla will feature for Hartlepool moving forward, although things could change should the 29-year-old not be able to fix himself up with a move elsewhere.

Askey has already moved to bring in one midfielder this summer with Mansfield Town's Kieran Wallace arriving whilst, despite being out of contract, talks are still understood to be taking place between the club and captain Nicky Featherstone, who saw his deal run out at the beginning of the month.