The Portuguese asks to halve the exit price. The knot of money to give to Sporting: Leao owes 19 million after his escape in 2018
The date of January 31st passed in vain. Although Milan expected to close the file by the end of the winter transfer market, Leao’s contract is still the one expiring in 2024. And it is the eloquent demonstration that the negotiation ended up on a dead end. Rupture, tear? Lexical nuances hardly change reality. And the dialogue, at the moment, does not offer positive ideas. In the attacker’s large entourage, the feeling is now clear that those three boulders on the road to the agreement (right now) are insurmountable. Salary, clause and Sporting knot. No statement, but in the end everyone agrees on this observation.
It is true that the parties have come closer on the specific issue of salary: 6.5 million net offered by the Rossoneri top management against the player’s request for 7 million. But the Sporting Lisbon question remains unresolved. As everyone knows, the attacker born in the suburbs of Lisbon in 2018 went to Lille using article 17: a free escape for which the Portuguese courts sentenced him to pay an indemnity of 19 million euros. Well, Rafael has long asked Maldini and Massara for the AC Milan club to take full responsibility for that burden, given that Lilla has pulled back in recent months. The management has already responded negatively to this request for some time. And this point appears very delicate: if we want the most important from an economic point of view. To further cool the parties, the question of the clause then emerged. Milan has always held firm on the subject. Instead, the Leao family (in particular) has pressed on the concept of the discount, that is to say halving the current 150 million to go down to 70, at most 80. Why does Leao insist on this aspect? Evidently he wants to protect himself for the future by laying the foundations for a “convenient” transfer for him from 2024 onwards. And this is why Maldini and Massara have frozen the subject, hoping for a softening of the counterpart. However the last contact a week ago hasn’t led to any second thoughts, the situation is sadly blocked. On the one hand, Rafael’s official agent, the French lawyer Ted Dimvula, was given a mandate by the family to govern relations with the company on via Aldo Rossi, but at the same time, father Antonio has brought Jorge Mendes closer again in recent months , the powerful Portuguese prosecutor. And precisely this double spirit in the great family council is the principle of misunderstandings in a marathon that produced promising accelerations last autumn but stopped abruptly in recent weeks. Many voices, many heads to agree.
In between is Leao with his often surprising ups and downs. All the times in which he has sworn long loyalty to the Rossoneri colors, then, he has not followed up on his resolutions. The result is that there is not yet an appointment on the agenda that can be considered decisive. Milan believes they have raised the bar enough, also in compliance with the commendable principles of accountability. On the other hand, Leao’s bell always rings in the same way: without any economic setback. In short, with these assumptions, at the moment no one seems willing to take a step towards the other. Instead, the appointment with the summer market is inexorable. And without a renewal in the running, the next episodes risk seeing new negotiations arise. But with other clubs…
February 1, 2023 (change February 1, 2023 | 07:31)
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