Chief says it was ‘impossible’ to stop Chelsea from signing player – Had to sell him immediately

Andrey Santos’ loan from Chelsea to Vasco da Gama was today explained by the Brazilian club.

Speaking to outlet UOL, director Paulo Bracks brought more details about the midfielder’s comeback to Rio de Janeiro after not being granted a work permit in the Premier League.

“We’ll take good care of him. It’s good for everyone,” Paulo Bracks told UOL.

“It is good for Vasco to have a player with his talent, top scorer and captain of the South American winning team. It’s good for him, he’ll be able to play at a high level and say goodbye to the fans. And for Chelsea, having the player active here and will receive a better player than now. And it’s good even for the Brazilian national team.”

Since Andrey wasn’t able to play for Chelsea yet, Bracks was asked if there was any regret regarding the sale, since they could’ve hold the player and then negotiate for a bigger fee in the summer. But he now claims it would have been ‘impossible’ to resist to Chelsea’s attempts.

“It was impossible to hold back the sale. There are negotiations where you can ‘cook’. This one from Andrey was impossible to hold. This was unable to be a day later. It was not possible to delay. Even so we went strongly for him to be a little more. If we had a bigger margin, we would have already negotiated to be at the end of the year. But in practice, that’s what happened”

Paulo Bracks also claimed there’s a ‘moral commitment’ to let the player go to the U-20 World Cup in May, since that had always been a request from Chelsea.

It’s well known that Palmeiras also got involved in the negotiations, despite Vasco having the priority to have him back on a loan, as agreed when selling him to Chelsea.

Now Bracks claims they were not afraid of the competition for the signing, as they knew the clause would favour them.

“When we made the sale to Chelsea, for the information I had, also by contacts in London, I was told that there was a great possibility of not having the work visa. I knew that in January. Before closing the deal, sign all the relevant contracts for sale, we put a clause that, if he could not get a visa, Vasco would have to be notified asking if he wanted the loan. By getting the right to be notified, we went ahead in the negotiation.”

“What I think happened: in parallel, Palmeiras must have negotiated directly with Andrey and the staff. I held on the contract. When Chelsea notified, we went in. The first thing was to close with Chelsea, who did not confirm that they talked to Palmeiras. In three days, I closed with them and then Chelsea gave a green light. So I went to talk to a player and staff.”