AP Photo/Armando Franca

Turkish club Besiktas spent the summer desperately trying to reduce their wage bill, flogging the likes of Simao Sabrosa and Fabian Ernst off in a bid to slash the club's budget.

As one of Besiktas' highest earners, there were also concerted efforts made to usher Ricardo Quaresma and his 3.75 million euro annual wage out through the exit door, but the Portuguese hung on, despite being told that he wouldn't be getting anywhere near the first team unless he agreed to take a pay cut.

After two months in footballing exile, Quaresma eventually agreed to hack 750,000 euros off his salary, which many perceived as a concerted effort on his part to get himself back in the Besiktas hierarchy's good books and, as a result, back into the first-team picture.

However, Besiktas board member Ahmed Nur Cebi has presented a very different spin on things, claiming that Quaresma only agreed to lower his wages after it was reported to the board that the former Inter Milan and Chelsea winger had exposed his genitals to a female staff member at the club's training complex and -- and there's no easy way to say this -- urinated on the team's 'outfitter and equipment handler', i.e, their kitman, though under what circumstances we're not entirely sure. (You can read another take on the incident here.)

According to the National Turk, Quaresma and his agent/henchman Jorge Mendes are unsurprisingly now planning to sue the 53-year-old businessman, with a defamation lawsuit said to be imminent.

(Via Kickette/National Turk)

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