The news about José Fonte’s disagreement with Southampton to sign a new contract may have been broken in England, but the Portuguese media have a line in too.
In their Wednesday edition, Record claimed the deal offered by the Saints wasn’t good enough for the defender, so he rejected it for now.
Fonte reportedly asked Southampton for a bigger pay rise, but the club weren’t overly keen on a new contract anyway, so weren’t going to make a big effort. Given the rejected offer, they would now be preparing to sell the player in January, according to Record.
Record has no problem in crediting stories to other newspapers or websites. But this time, despite seeing the news being published in England the day before, they still claim they had their own sources.
They even say that although some English outlets claim José Mourinho would be keen on signing Fonte, no formal offers have been made for the defender so far.
The 32-year-old’s contract expires in 2018. Maybe Southampton would be in a hurry to sell him before they get to a situation when clubs may wait and try and complete a free transfer.
Record’s report may be partially right, because José Fonte has officially denied receiving am offer to raise his salary at Southampton.
On his Instagram account, the player said he was actually told he’s not being offered a new contract and will keep focused on football despite this problem.
This happened before the close of the newspaper’s edition, so maybe Record are actually going against what the player said.
