Yaya Toure was considered as a target by Stade Brest but the deal was too complicated, according to the French outfit's sporting director Gregory Lorenzi.
Toure has enjoyed a hugely successful career spanning almost 20 years, with impressive spells at Barcelona and Manchester City.
The Ivorian won two La Liga titles and the Champions League at Camp Nou, before being snapped up by City for £24 million ($31m) in the summer of 2010.
He went on to become a legend at Etihad Stadium, scoring 79 goals in 316 appearances to help the Blues win three Premier League titles and the FA Cup.
Toure was also named African Footballer of the Year in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, having established himself as one of the best midfielders in the world, but he gradually lost his way after Pep Guardiola's arrival at City in 2016.
The 37-year-old fell out of favour under the man who turned him into a superstar at Barca, and was ultimately released at the end of the 2017-18 campaign.
Toure had spells at Olympiacos and in the Chinese Super League with Qingdao Huanghai, but he dropped into the free agency pool in January and has been looking for his next club ever since.
Toure trained with League Two side Leyton Orient for a brief period but wasn't offered a contract, and his agent has reached out to several other clubs in a bid to revive his faltering career.
Brest have been among those to consider a move for the ex-Ivory Coast international, but Lorenzi has revealed that the club decided against formalising their interest because of the baggage that he'd bring with him to Stade Francis-Le Ble.
"Yaya Toure did not necessarily correspond to what we were looking for," Brest chief Lorenzi told Telefoot . "I discussed it with people who saw this idea as interesting because it could make people talk about Brest.
"But I wondered, with regard to my trainer, if a player like that could be easy to manage in the locker room. With respect to the other players, it could have been complicated, so we preferred not to follow up."
