AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund are reportedly interested in the Sunderland defender Sebastian Coates. The 26-year-old, who’s currently on loan at Sporting, has been doing well in Portugal and turned his career around over the past year.
According to O Jogo today, Milan and Dortmund aren’t the only clubs involved, there’s interest from the Premier League too. Milan’s interest had already been reported, but the rest of the information is really something new.
Sporting have a €5m buying option over the player which can be used until the end of the season. O Jogo claims that Coates currently earns €2.8m per year, and the Portuguese club only pay €2.4m for now.
The Lions would have no problem in paying the full amount, but the talks have stalled due to the “intermediation costs”, which we can only understand as the agent asking for too much money.
Maybe that’s a good thing for Sunderland. If those clubs are really interested, the club could certainly get more than €5m for his sale now. They just need to expect Sporting not to reach a deal with the player.
Sporting have made themselves a drama here which could have been avoided. The deal could have been made permanent far earlier, before Coates started attracting more widespread attention.
