Rafael Leao’s exit was one of the biggest stories of the summer where AC Milan were involved. Indeed, it went down a different route than most expected.
In recent years, there have been suggestions that Leao could leave Milan. During the Paulo Fonseca era, he reportedly gave his permission to his entourage to start looking for an exit, but nothing happened publicly.
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So, when Leao announced on Portuguese television that he was leaving the Rossoneri this summer, it sent a bit of a shockwave. An exit was likely, but this was the first sign of it being official and it caused a huge reaction.
Leao’s lawyer discusses departure
Speaking at a workshop – organised by Sportitalia – Leao’s lawyer, Antonio Leo, spoke about the deal, how it was handled and what the plan was originally, as MilanVibes relays.
“In these negotiations, the essential thing is to have a plan. Our plan was to decide at the end of the transfer window, regardless of whether Galatasaray or another team would be involved: all parties involved were aware of this intention.
“Therefore, from the beginning, we said that our decision would be made at the end of the transfer window for a number of reasons, including expediency. You can understand why, in the final days of the transfer window, anything can happen.”
It’s interesting to see that the decision was always expected at the end of the mercato, despite an announcement being made at the start of the summer. Whether this answers anyone’s questions is another thing entirely…
He turned over the ball 21 times in Galatasaray’s loss against Trabzonspor, the Gala fans are already losing patience with him and people here expected us to eat this crap up year after year of him being to lazy to realise his potential.
They knew one thing; first is he is not anymore competitive to bring Milan on higher level, and that was last summer for Milan to capital gain, and for Leao to sign big contract.
It depends all about Turkish league but all after that he can go to Saudi clubs and thats big ifff….
This article is neither here nor there, not sure what the strategy was if it wasn’t forced upon them when the actual destinations (EPL, La Liga) didn’t show up and them waiting for a lowball deal from one of them at the end of the mercato. Either way he got his wishes and quite frankly we couldn’t care less how they planned it.
Milan should have sold Leao instead of Theo. I stand by that even today. Leao was already replaced by Pulisic so we should have sold him 2 seasons ago and we would have received more money for him.
This is the problem at Milan. There is no strategy for when to sell players and when to keep them. Personally for me Leao is just an average player and nothing special and he’s definitely not world class. Leao is not even a starter for Portugal.
Imagine João Felix playing ahead of you in the national team? That to me says a lot about what Portugal thinks of Leao.
I’ve seen better players come and go at Milan. It was a mistake when Milan let Crespo, Bacca, Marco Simone, Beirhoff and Theo leave. Players who I believed had more to offer but left too soon.
I can not imagine the outrage if Leão was sold before the 25-26 season. I’m not saying you’re wrong, far from it. However, PR-wise it would have been a nightmare.
Theo was trash, dude burned out faster than leao it’s telling that no club wanted him and it’s even more telling he can’t find his way back…
what are the contribution of the players you mentioned to the overall success of Milan? Fact check Leao’s statistics as a Milan player, he ranks among top 10 Forwards that ever adorn the Jersey of this great club and you called him an average player. That is an insult
Leao checked out.
You can too.
I actually agree with this. Theo also has his problems, and his departure wasn’t unimaginable, but I’ve always also thought that the summer that Theo left, if one of them had to be sold to make end meet, it should have been Leao. Leao peaked the season after the scudetto, and it was all down hill after that. The season ended June 2025 (when Theo was sold) was the second season in a row where he failed to hit more than 10 league goals, but before clubs around Europe realized he wasn’t that good. That was the moment to cash in.