Corinthians have already started taking the first actions to protect their U20 talents who became champions of Copa São Paulo de Futebol Junior last night.
As reported this week, one of these wonderkids is Pedrinho, a 18-year-old who attracted the interest from Chelsea scouts who have following the tournament.
According to UOL, the youngster’s release clause is of R$40m (£10m), but the Brazilian club are already in talks to raise this amount to R$70m (£17.5m).
The wish of the player’s representatives would be to keep him in Brazil this year, as they hope he’ll be promoted to the first team soon.
Speaking to Sport Witness this Wednesday, Pedrinho’s agent Will Dantas revealed he received a call from someone claiming a Chelsea representative saying they would make an offer they could not refuse.
However, Dantas seems pretty calm with the situation and would only sit with other clubs after the end of the Copinha, which was last night. Probably both Corinthians and the interested sides (Chelsea, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid) will make their efforts in the next few weeks.
Chelsea have a long history of scouting, and signing, some of Brazil’s best young talents and Pedrinho may well be the next. This would look like a Michael Emenalo plan, rather than a player who would go straight into Antonio Conte’s squad.
