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There’s been a tug of war going on between Manchester City of the English Premier League and New York City FC (NYCFC) of North America’s Major League soccer over the status of English midfielder Frank Lampard and the fans aren’t happy about it. Last year NYCFC announced that the former England international had signed a two-year contract with the expansion club and would start to play with the team in their inaugural season in 2015. However, since Lampard was released by his former club Chelsea during the summer he figured he’d spend his time on loan with Man City until the MLS season got underway in March.

Lampard’s loan deal was supposedly supposed to end in January and he was then expected to head to New York. However, that’s apparently not the case as Man City now insists the player will remain with them until his contract expires on June 30. When NYCFC announced last year that Lampard would be joining the club approximately 12,000 season tickets were bought by fans who expected him to be in the lineup from day one. NYCFC used the signing as a way to sell tickets and now admits it misled fans over the situation.

According to Man City, Lampard never actually signed a contract with NYCFC, he just agreed to join the club. To further complicate the matter, the City Football Group owns both NYCFC and Man City with Man City more or less being the parent club of NYCFC. Since the 36-year-old Lampard is playing so well in England and Man City has a good shot at retaining their Premier League title, the club wants to keep him there. They’re also still competing in the European Champions League. Lampard tried to clarify the situation and admitted that he didn’t sign an official contract with NYCFC, but has just recently signed on the dotted line on January 9th and will join the team on July 1.

This means NYCFC will have to play the first four months of the MLS season without their star player and fans feel they’ve been ripped off. Lampard’s agent said he didn’t know Man City would offer a contract extension after the original deal expired on December 31. Man City manager Manuel Pellegrini then asked the player if he would stay until the end of the season and much to the chagrin of NYCFC and MLS fans he agreed.