The issue of Rafael Leao’s contract continues to be discussed, with AC Milan interested in pushing the deadline back.
Calciomercato.com report that Leao wants to ‘keep surfing’ at Milan for ‘many years to come’. Since the end of January, the forward and his entourage have been talking to Igli Tare (the two have an excellent relationship) about a possible contract extension.
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Both the player and the club want to move forward together, and so a contract extension has gone from an idea to a renewal negotiation, all while Leao improved his season tally to nine goals on Sunday in Cremona.
Differences with 2023
Leao loves Milan. The relationship has had its ups and downs, but there are no obvious obstacles like in 2023, when months and months of meetings with lawyers, agents and family members were needed to resolve the issue of the €22m fine that was later paid to Sporting Lisbon.
The 2023 renewal was a significant one for Leao: the No.10 shirt and a quadrupled salary of €5.5m net per year plus bonuses followed. Rafa became the highest-paid player in the squad and the face of a club that has entrusted the Portuguese to take them back to the top of Europe.
The idea this time is to increase the fixed base to €6m net per season, including bonuses. Leao and his family will listen to Milan’s proposal and make a final decision in the coming weeks. Tare is pushing for the renewal done with the blessing of Allegri, who also has a great relationship with Leao.
One aspect that deserves further consideration is the €175m release clause in Leao’s current contract. The most realistic option is to keep it as it is, even though the player’s entourage want to remove it. As for the timing, the parties want it done before the season ends, though there is no huge urgency.
What if we cash in Leao to the highest bidder, the result is we can buy the player we want.,
Instead of buying THE player we/Allegri/Tare/Furlani want(s), we’d just end up buying 3-4 mediocre ones and hope that one of them would turn out useful and bring profit to the club when he’s being sold.
The multiple comments about selling Leao that we often see here, most of them by haters, are disgraceful. Despite playing with a chronic pelvic inflammation that limits his speed and results in chronic pain, far from being lazy as the haters pretend, Leao is sacrificing himself for the sake of the team (accepting to never rest properly to fully recover) and despite that and limited minutes, has already surpassed Pulisic in number of goals. (To be fair to Puli whom I love, the latter has also been chronically injured this season, with knee bursitis, and has also had limited minutes. This is not to bash Pulisic; it’s simply to praise Leao which is the topic of this thread; I will also defend Puli against his haters in other threads).
Leao is one of only 2 Serie A players who have scored at least 10 seasonal goals in each of the last 6 seasons. The other one is Lautaro Martinez.
Leao is one of only 4 AC Milan players in history, since 1899, to have simultaneously scored more than 50 goals and provided more than 20 assists. The other 3 are Kaká, Seedorf, and Gianni Rivera. Good company, huh?
Leao this season alone despite his chronic injury, has earned 11 points for Milan with 3 wins in which he was the only scorer for Milan (one 2-1 victory in which he scored both goals, and two 1-0 victories in which he was the scorer) and two 1-1 draws in which he scored our sole goals, preventing two defeats. Without these decisive goals and points earned, we’d currently be 7th and outside the qualification zone for all European competitions.
It’s mind-boggling that the haters don’t see his contributions.
Selling Leao will obviously hurt Milan, especially because we know that the owners will use the profit to buy a bunch of nobodies they hope to develop and sell for more profit.
Any Milan fan who isn’t a hater and has a drop of good sense, knows that hoping that Leao will be sold is a non-starter and hugely detrimental to the team.
Me, I’m glad that Rafa loves Milan and wants to stay, despite the ungrateful segment of the fan base and all the unfair criticism he gets.
Forza Rafael Leao! We intelligent and real Milan fans appreciate you and support you!
Rafa is an average player and will never get better than this hence it’s best that we cash in on him while he’s still rated highly.
His best is not good enough as he has been redundant since the scudetto season. We should sell him and buy Nusa from RB Leipzig who is a far much better player