Lucas Pérez: “My parents abandoned me when I was two and now they are asking me for money for life”

Lucas Pérez (A Coruña, 37 years old) left Cádiz in 2022 mid-season to return home to Deportivo . He left the First Division behind to try to help the Galician team, which was in Primera RFEF, return to the Second Division. And he did so last season, scoring the goal that gave Deportivo promotion. “I'm not talking about money, I wanted to go home,” he said at his presentation. However, in January he announced that he was leaving the club for a “number of things,” as he said in his farewell. And he added: “I came to help, now is the time to leave for the good of the club.” But on Monday night, in an interview on Cope, he revealed that the reasons for his departure were due to a “difficult personal situation” and the “deterioration” of the relationship with the club. “A burofax arrives at the club where I have a complaint from my father demanding maintenance for the rest of his life. "I was raised by my grandparents after spending time in an orphanage where I was abandoned when I was two years old," said the footballer.

Since the arrival of his father's burofax, Lucas Pérez says that at Deportivo he experienced moments of "a lot of stress and anguish" until his departure . The player also says that when he signed for Arsenal in 2016, his mother did the same thing that his father has now asked for. However, the striker points out that he could not ask for it because the mother was not included in the joint custody. "My grandparents asked for custody and, later, my grandmother allowed my father to have it. I was lucky to have my grandparents, but they could not last as long as they should have."

This personal situation is compounded by the loss of the relationship with the club. “In the first six months (at Deportivo), we were eliminated in the play-off . The following year the board and the coach changed and we started the season not in the best way. In November and December I found out that people at the club were asking for my departure because the manager and people from the Board told me so. It hurt me a lot because they never spoke to me. I understand the stress there was because things weren’t going well, I had scored zero goals in Primera RFEF,” explains Lucas.

Lucas Pérez argues that he is leaving now because “the issue” with his father continues. “I have met him several times this Christmas and it is not a pleasant experience. Given that the situation at the club was not right, because I did not feel valued or supported, I decided to be honest and tell them that I am having a hard time stepping aside. The club and I spoke and finally they asked me to sign a written commitment with them until the end of the season. I consider that they do not know what Deportivo means to me and when there is doubt like that, the best thing is to step aside,” confesses the striker.

The former Deportivo player also wanted to talk about his future and his signing for PSV and argues that he never thought about leaving football because he loves it. “Life puts you in situations and you have to be strong and brave, I want to leave playing on a football field, not in this situation. All these words are for the fans, so they understand me,” he concluded.