AC Milan have rejected a ‘monstrous’ offer from Saudi Pro League side Al Hilal for Rafael Leao as the Portuguese forward does not want to leave the club this summer.
As reported by Corriere dello Sport (via Milan News), the Rossoneri are not entertaining offers for the winger as there is no active desire to sell him and the player himself wants to finish his work at Euro 2024 and then prepare for a new season under Paulo Fonseca.
The offer in question from the Saudi Pro League champions was for €100m, a figure that would certainly give Milan a lot more power in the transfer market than they currently have.
Leao would have been in line to earn around €20m per season if he went to Al Hilal which means it can’t have been an easy decision to stay, but he values progression in Europe over a bigger paycheck.
Milan have made it clear that the only way in which they are going to sell Leao this summer is if a team triggers his €175m release clause, so Al Hilal will have to almost double their offer.
It is not yet clear if they plan to come in with an improved offer above €100m.
Come on, you sure can do a lot better than that. 175M€ isn’t a lot for some club, it’s not even reach 200M€ ceiling. Add counterpart for leveraging the signing.
🤡
Leao bigger Milanista than Toenail.
This depends if Milan already has someone in mind to replace him or not. If they have someone under 50mil, then 125mil+ for Leao and they should pack his bags and use that money to reinvest.
But if they don’t have a clue who to sign in place of Leao, then he should stay, because we’ll end up without Leao and spending 80mil on some post-PremierLeague flop and hoping he would be at least half good as Leao.
Indeed. I can think of one 50M player who would be a good replacement: Chiesa. OR, we could just move Pulisic to his natural LW position and start Chuk at RW and use all of the money for striker, DM, CB and RB (and maybe a decent Chuk backup). Considering how we would have 170M to spend on 4.5 positions, we’re talking about an average of about 40M per player. Bringing in four 40M players is pretty good and will improve the overall quality of the team even with having lost Leao.
^ ops; this wasn’t supposed to be reply to your comment
I don’t think he is, he would certainly move if a good offer came from EPL or La Liga
And that good offer won’t happen.
Most of teams who can afford to spend north of 100M€ on a single player either have better options in the left wing or don’t have weaknesses to adress in that department, so why spend money a player that might or might not succeed.
Yeah, also Origi and Rebic who refused to go to Saudi Arabia are bigger Milanisti than Tonali.
Absolutely!!
Milan is saying 100m is not enough
100M€ isn’t a “monstrous” offer TBH. And they shoud decline such a pathetic opening.
Nor has Leao shown anything remotely worth 100mil at the Euro’s…
Can’t argue here. 😀
He was never going to Saudi, going to Saudi isn’t going to advance his career. If Fonseca can get the best out of him next year he might end up at rich European club like PSG or Manc.
100 or 175 it’s all the same to Saudi . Hopefully they offer him a bigger salary and convince him to join . That’ll be amazing. Leao is a piece of shi.t crybaby .. so much raw talent but mindset of a mid level player
Leao is just playing hard to get. Gonna have a “lights out” season under Fonseca and drum up some real cash money $$$
LOL!!!
Personally, I feel this is as good of a player he can ever be. Let him go for 100ml and get a much better player for half the price. The only good thing he has is speed, other than that, mark him and he’ll be “dead in the water”
Leao’s decision to not chase saudi cash is a sign of maturity. He can develop, and it should happen at Milan.