Lille striker Rafael Leão gets slightly linked to Everton by two different sources today.
It all happened because the French side’s advisor Luís Campos has spoken to Portuguese newspaper O Jogo, and talked about the 20-year-old’s future.
Campos has claimed that Lille’s plans are to keep Leão at the club, despite the many approaches he’s been getting lately.
“Rafael Leão has many suitors, but it’s not our goal to sell him. Although there are sometimes conditions that are impossible to refuse,” Luís Campos told O Jogo.
“His future? We’ll see. What we want is for him to continue to make progress. If it’s here, that’s better, but if it’s at another club, that’s fine. Anyway, no matter what happens, I’m happy as long as I feel he continues to evolve.
“French football is not like Portuguese in terms of termination clauses – here, they don’t exist. And not everyone can have Ferraris at home; sometimes they have to sell. Rafael Leão is a player with a lot of future, our idea is to keep him here, but if there are irrefutable proposals, we can’t say no.”
In the same story, O Jogo only wrote that Leão has ‘recently been linked to Everton and Valencia’, with nothing else to add.
And when covering the interview, French outlet Foot Mercato had a little more to say. They write that Everton and Valencia ‘were the first to show up in the past few months’, and ‘these quotes could alert’ some new interested sides.
Rafael Leão left Sporting at the end of his contract last summer, and after some big competition to land him, it was Lille who won the race. The striker had eight goals and two assists this season.
