Ravel Morrison has had his contract terminated by mutual consent after West Ham paid up a percentage of his £330,000 wages in advance.
It had been hoped the club could loan him out to a Championship club for his remaining six months using a FA loophole to save on some or all of his wages. The football league loan window opens again on Monday.
Unfortunately nobody in the Championship wanted to loan him on his £15,000 per week wages. They would have wanted a discount on the wages and only paid them to last day of the season in May when his contract runs to June 30th.
Morrison has signed a pre contact with Lazio on a four year deal. Sam Allardyce was confident he could tame the youngster when he signed him in 2012 after Sir Alex Ferguson’s patience finally snapped but, like his close friend, he has failed to get the best out of the player for any sustained period of time.
Morrison made just 12 league starts for West Ham and 6 sub appearances scoring 3 goals. he made 5 Cup starts and one sub scoring another two goals. He made 25 starts for Birmingham while on loan from West Ham, 14 for QPR and just 1 for Cardiff.
He cost West Ham an initial £650,000 transfer fee from Manchester United but that climbed to £1m after £25,000 per first appearance clause was fulfilled. He signed a three and a half year contract on the 31st January 2012 earning him £2.7m in wages some of which was offset by loaning him out.