• The 33-year-old right winger signed a contract with Antalyaspor but only after the ban imposed by world governing body Fifa came into force, meaning he could not be registered.
• The English transfer window closes on Friday but the Turkish window does not close until September 13.
Image: HANDOUT
Andros Townsend says “I don’t know who owns me” after the Turkish club he joined from Luton earlier this month was banned from registering players.
The 33-year-old right winger signed a contract with Antalyaspor but only after the ban imposed by world governing body Fifa came into force, meaning he could not be registered.
Townsend can train with his new teammates but cannot play or even be officially announced as an Antalyaspor player.
An Antalyaspor source has told BBC Sport the Super Lig club owes outstanding money to two former players and, when the debts are paid, hope to complete Townsend’s transfer soon.
“I’m stuck in Antalyaspor just training, I don’t know who owns me, I don’t know where my contract is,” the former England international told BBC 5 Live’s Monday Night Club.
Townsend signed a long-term deal with Luton in January after joining as a free agent in October 2023.
He made 31 appearances for Luton last season as they were relegated from the Premier League. He was a late substitute in the Hatters’ first game of the Championship against Burnley on August 12.
Antalyaspor are on the Fifa registration ban list, which means they are “temporarily prohibited from registering new players due to various infractions, such as financial disputes or regulatory breaches”.
The restriction is in place for three transfer windows meaning they cannot register any new players until January 2026.
“We came to the end of the transfer of Townsend, but we could not issue the player’s licence due to the transfer barrier,” the club source said.
“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.”
The English transfer window closes on Friday but the Turkish window does not close until September 13.
Explaining the situation, Townsend said: “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.”
He added: “Every time I ask them, they say ‘the contract is signed, you’re our player’. But nothing has been announced.
“There were so many red flags, you wouldn’t believe it. But something was telling me this is the right move for me, to go and experience something new in Antalya which is a beautiful city right near the beach. Something was telling me to make it happen.
“I had some great conversations with [manager] Rob Edwards and [chief executive] Gary Sweet at Luton, they wanted me to stay but they were supportive of what I wanted to do. “I made the decision, I thought, to move out here. 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.”