In an interview with HBVL, Genk’s sporting director Dimitri De Conde has revealed that the deal to swap Paul Onuachu and Joseph Paintsil was a non starter when the latter indicated that he did not want to move to Southampton. However, De Conde also revealed that Southampton were keen for Genk to force the Ghanaian winger into moving to England. According to the Genk sporting director, the Championship side asked Genk to put pressure on Paintsil to leave, for example by not taking him on the plane to Turkey for the Europa Conference League qualifier.
De Conde revealed that Paintsil is very happy in Genk and did not want to join a second tier side in England. This was also the case when it came to interest from another side in the same league, Leeds United. The Yorkshire side were keen on Paintsil but he did not want to join them. Instead, he has remained at Genk and will be there until at least January.