Milan’s leaders’ desire to extend Rafael Leao’s contract has never been disputed. Since his arrival from Lille three years ago, the Portuguese has gradually improved his quality and has become one of the key figures in last year’s championship campaign in Serie A, which is why he has earned the Rossoneri star status. After the best season in his career, the interest of the richest European clubs in Leao began to grow rapidly, thus putting pressure on Milan to change the terms of cooperation with their offensive player.AC Milan director Paolo Maldini on Rafa Leão and Chelsea links: “There has been no approach or contact for Leão after September 1st”. 🚨🇵🇹 #ACMilan“We wanted to extend his contract one year ago — now we will try to seal Leão’s new deal in one month, before the World Cup break”. pic.twitter.com/vBO9Ejiuvx— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) October 11, 2022 ’Gazeta’ announced a new round of negotiations with Leao’s agents for next Tuesday, and no matter how much the disagreements over the salary amount represent a stumbling block, a much bigger problem for both parties is the pharaoh’s debt that the Portuguese owe to his parent club – Sporting of Lisbon. Today, with all interest, it amounts to almost 20 million euros.🚨 Milan are ready to offer Leao a five-year contract worth €5M/year+helping the player pay off his compensation to Sporting Lisbon with around €9-10M. Milan’s appointment with the French lawyer that represents Leao between Tuesday and Wednesday[@Gazzetta_it] pic.twitter.com/vCYBBCV0PE— CHAMPIONS OF ITALY 🏆 (@MilanEye) October 13, 2022 To fully understand Leo’s case, we need to rewind the film to the summer of 2018. It was a time of serious turbulence in the Lisbon club, due to changes at the top. Many will remember that Siniša Mihajlović was replaced as coach only nine days after he took the helm, and the reason for that is that he was appointed to that position by the old one, while a new administration was installed literally in those days. In the midst of everything that was happening at the time, a group of disgruntled Sporting supporters stormed into the first team’s training session one day, causing a huge dust-up. Leao used that hooligan attack as a basis for unilaterally terminating his contract with the club where he grew up, which is why he moved to Lille as a free agent. It was only the beginning of the whole tangle in which the Portuguese forward still finds himself.Mount about the controversial call: Was it a penalty? Maybe yes…Not long after things stabilized a little, Sporting started a procedure through the court of sports arbitration, according to which they demanded the payment of compensation from Leao in the amount of 16.5 million euros. The verdict was in favor of the club, with the explanation that “the attack by the fans is not a strong enough argument for terminating the contract”, but until today Sporting has not received a single euro cent. As time passed, the interest started to accumulate as Leao did not want to pay his former club, and Lille with him, which is why the guild is estimated to be almost 20 million euros. Sporting asked Lille to pay all or at least part of the compensation, but the French club refused, referring to FIFA’s obligation to resolve the disputed case by paying from its coffers. Or, in the worst case, the player does it. Lille’s appeal was rejected, so he is obliged to settle the arrears with Sporting.41 years, 2 Ferraris, 1 legendThat’s how we get to the present moment… Leao and Milan have a mutual desire to extend their cooperation, which according to the current contract expires in the summer of 2024, but the debt to Sporting is a sword that hangs over the heads of both the club and the player. Because Lille continues to make it difficult.San Siro is going down, but clubs will share the new ground tooAt San Siro, they lost their patience and decided to close this chapter. The director tandem Maldini – Massara came up with the idea of negotiating a new contract with Leao with a certain raise, but also to cover part of the debt to Sporting. Leao has so far asked Milan for his new salary to be 7 million euros without any bonuses, the Rossoneri first offered 4,500,000, now they would allegedly go for 5,000,000 euros net (a total of 25 million for five years), plus they would pay Sporting exactly half of Leo’s debt. It is estimated to be between 9,000,000 and 10,000,000 euros. The rest would have to be shared by Lille and Leao, and above all by the former champion of France. Let us remind you that Milan bought Leao for 23,000,000 euros with certain bonuses that would increase the value of the transfer. That would practically be a mechanism to “beat” Lille’s claims against Milan…##NAJAVA_MECA_6715902##Already from Lombardy, messages can be heard that their top scorer must sign a new contract before the World Cup. Maldini talked about it before the game with Chelsea on Tuesday, while Leao’s entourage confirmed the desire to continue the cooperation after 2024. While all this is going on, Chelsea and PSG are reportedly following the developments in detail and are ready to wait for a possible chance to grab the player who has scored four and set up seven more goals in 12 games this season. Its market value according to the last census from June was 70 million euros.
