Raith Rovers’ Gregory Tade has confirmed he will be leaving the club when his contract runs out next month.
The popular Frenchman admitted it will be a wrench to go, but he is determined to play at the highest level in this country.
Raith’s failure to win promotion to the SPL was the key factor in his decision and he is now weighing up offers from a couple of unnamed SPL clubs.
“I did not sign a new contract as I was waiting to see whether we would be playing in the SPL,” he said. “I gave 100% in every game to try to help us get there, but we just missed out.
“I now have a couple of options to consider as I have been scouted by other teams. There is still a lot of talking to be done with my agent and other managers before I finally decide where I am going.
“I do not want to mention names of sides but it would be fair to say that I am not done with Scottish football just yet and hope to play at the highest level here.
“I will decide in the next couple of weeks which club I will be doing pre-season training with.
“It would be great if Raith Rovers could make it to the SPL as soon as possible as well. The club and the fans deserve to be there.”
Tade admitted he will be taking a lot of fond memories of his time at Stark’s Park with him to his new team.
“I am very sad to leave after two fantastic years at Raith,” he added. “It was a pleasure to work under a great manager with a tremendous set of team-mates. The fans were always superb with me as well.
“I will also leave with some great memories, like last year’s cup run which took us all the way to the semi-final and a game at Hampden. We may have missed out on promotion this season but we still had some big results and we were top of the league for most of the campaign.”
Raith boss John McGlynn revealed the club had tried all they could to retain the striker but, having failed to do so, he insisted that Tade leaves with the best wishes of everyone at Stark’s Park.
“We attempted to get Gregory to sign a new contract back in August but he intimated to us that he wanted to play at a higher level in the SPL,” he said. “We tried again at Christmas with another contract but he was in the same frame of mind.
“However, I think he would have stayed at the club if we had won promotion to the SPL. He has had two excellent years at Raith Rovers and hopefully we have helped develop him as a player who can compete at a higher level.
“We are sad to see him go but he leaves with our best wishes for the future.”