Even though there wasn’t a lot in today’s Portuguese newspapers regarding the future of Alex Telles, some interesting claims are popped up on television.
Record’s editor-in-chief Vitor Pinto was live on CMTV speaking of the transfer market, and brought some news which can raise the eyebrows of Manchester United fans.
He claims he doesn’t want to say it ‘concretely’, but there are ‘clues’ the Porto left-back has been ‘under pressure’ to fulfil his contract with the club and leave for free next year.
Porto have believed during this market that Telles already has a deal with another club for next season, when he’d move as a free agent.
That’s why the player has been so hard to negotiate with over a renewal, as he currently demands a salary of €4m per season, after tax, and no Portuguese club can afford that.
He mentions that Paris Saint Germain, Manchester United and Juventus have all been looking for a player in Telle’s position, but doesn’t bring any details on talks with those clubs.
The only clue he mentions is that this pressure could come ‘from a club of a country not very far’, trying to get ‘another Porto player for free’. But he doesn’t go on, saying he’s maybe ‘talking too much’.
It’s worth recalling that Atletico Madrid signed Héctor Herrera as a free agent last summer.
Now with the chance of a sale, Vitor Pinto says this a much better scenario for Porto than in the past few weeks, when they believed the left-back would only leave for free. Even though the Dragons could lose 25% of a fee due to the percentages for Galatasaray and agent commissions.
This may all go some way to explaining why the story hasn’t been as big in Portugal as would normally be expected. Porto would prefer to sell to Manchester United or anyone else than lose their player on a free transfer, but they need a concrete a reasonable offer for that to happen.
