River Plate excludes Funes Mori twins

Rogelio Gabriel

Buenos Aires - Football players and 23-year-old twins Rogelio Gabriel and Ramiro Funes Mori were excluded from the Argentine club River Plate for rejecting to sign a contract extension.

The contracts, with the extensions rejected Friday, of both players with River will expire in one year, so afterwards the transfer ticket will be in their possession, reported Xinhua.

River’s president Daniel Passarella returned from Europe Thursday where he tried to sell their contracts, but failed.

In January 2011, Portugal’s Benfica offered 8.5 million euros for Rogelio Gabriel but Passarella rejected the proposal because he considered it was not enough. Later, in August 2011, Netherland’s PSV Eindhoven offered $5 million, which was also rejected by Passarella.

Despite the fact that Rogelio Gabriel is considered a player with great technique and is praised by his partners, he has shown a slack level and has failed to score in many occasions.

Ramiro is a left defender and in October 2012 he broke his left knee’s cruciate ligaments leading him to be inactive for more than six months.

Ramiro Funes Mori

The twins, born July 11, 1991, took part in the US broadcasting company Univision’s football reality show called ‘Dream MLS‘. During that time, the Funes family lived in the US. Among 2,000 participants, Rogelio Gabriel and Ramiro were finalists. Rogelio won to enter Dallas FC team, where he played in the junior division.

Later, the twins were offered to take a test in Britain’s Chelsea, when River’s 1992 junior team was taking part in an international tournament. Then, River was interested in the twins and included them in February 2009, though currently did not consider them to take part in the pre-season.