Despite the acknowledgement that Tottenham Hotspur are interested in signing Pedro Porro from Sporting in January, the Portuguese media isn’t showing a lot of confidence about this transfer.
A couple of reports today say Spurs are actually unlikely to trigger the player’s €45m release clause, and that’s the only way the Lions will let him go at the end of the season.
A Bola are one of those outlets, as they confirm that Tottenham are interested in the player and already made moves for the signing.
However, it’s said people at Sporting ‘don’t believe’ the London side can reach €45m in January, and the newspaper also guarantees that no official bids have been submitted so far.
Correio da Manhã features a more complicated story, claiming Spurs don’t want to show they can pay €45m just to avoid Manchester City from making profit with the player.
That’s because the Citizens have a €20m buy-back clause over Porro, and would therefore make €25m by selling him to their Premier League rivals lately.
Meanwhile, Tottenham believe that if paying just €40m to Sporting, the Lions would still keep €26.5m, even after sending the percentages to City and the agents, and that’s a better scenario for the Lisbon side.
It all sounds a little weird, as it doesn’t look that likely that Manchester City would re-buy Porro just to sell him to Spurs, but that’s what is being said.
Back to A Bola, they point out that Porro isn’t the only target at Sporting that Tottenham have.
They recall that Spurs remain interested in bringing Marcus Edwards back to the club. In that case, they still own 50% of the player’s rights, and would only need €30m to trigger his €60m release clause.
