This Wednesday, Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manhã has a short story saying Manchester United could land Éder Militão for less than expected.
They write that there’s a clause in his contract which would allow him to leave in the January market for only €42.5m, a lower amount than the €50m release clause which everyone was aware of.
Correio da Manhã doesn’t credit the information to any other outlet, and when taking a look at stories from the past few days, we’ve checked that the Portuguese press has been wondering if this clause really exists.
Local outlets were taken by surprise when ESPN Brasil broke the news in the last days of 2018, and despite covering the claims, Portuguese outlets still didn’t take it for granted.
ESPN Brasil’s original report claimed that besides Manchester United, Liverpool are also in the race for the Porto the defender, although it’s really the Red Devils who have the lead.
It may well be that Militão and his entourage believe the lower clause exists, but Porto aren’t coming forward to confirm it.
Porto signed the player from São Paulo last summer for only €4m, taking advantage of a situation where his contract with the Brazilian side would expire at the end of 2018.
Now the defender was quick to adapt to European football, and immediately found a place in the starting team, becoming an important asset for the Portuguese champions.
Initial Manchester United links credited the interest to Jose Mourinho, but the claims haven’t stopped since the manager left.
