A big day yesterday for Porto – Chelsea business relations. Having paid the ?15 million release clause in André Villas Boas` contract at 4 p.m., the coach went to London on one of Roman Abramovich`s private jets to finalise the details of his contract with Chelsea. Sources in Portugal state that his contract will be for 3 years, and that he will be presented very shortly. Possibly even today.
And those sources in Portugal consider that there will be a lot of additional traffic between Porto and Chelsea. Villas Boas will bring a number of technical staff with him. And some players. New names are appearing on the shopping list.
First will be Portuguese midfielder João Moutinho. A striker, the fantastically named Hulk, is also on the shopping list. But one new name is Columbian midfielder James Rodriguez (known on his shirt, simply, as James). Apparently these three players are ‘on stand-by` to be called to London. Then again, we learn that these are three players with massive release clauses in their contracts: respectively ?40 million, ?100 million and ?45 million.
And then there is Radamel Falcaon who has already been linked with Chelsea, Columbian striker and vice-captain of the team, a player in whom Villas Boas has a ‘blind faith`. The trouble with Falcao is that he is represented by one Jorge Mendes.
Chelsea supporters might well remember Mendes, he us usually preceded by the qualifying description of ‘super-agent`. Amongst his clients: José Mourinho and Ronaldo. He is clearly a canny businessmen who is good at engineering multi-million euro transfers for his clients. So it is with little surprise that there are reports that Real Madrid could be interested in Falcao.
What that means is that Jorge Mendes is interested in provoking another very rich club into entering the market for Falcao ? or at least to pretend that Madrid could be muscling in to hoik up the player`s price. The reported Madrid angle appears dubious: Madrid are about to sign (former Chelsea target) Neymar, so it is unlikely that they would be keen on an additional striker in Falcao.
All of these players would make excellent additions to Chelsea`s squad, and our previous dealings with Porto players suggest that their transfer from Portuguese football to English football will go well. In addition, if they come with the coach that led them to success, there could be few better guarantees. The obstacle will be the canny business skills of the Porto President Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa. It was, after all, Pinto da Costa who inserted the huge release clause into Villas Boas` contract (apparently against the advice of everyone else) and is now counting the ?15 million that Chelsea paid yesterday.
Previous dealings with Pinto da Costa over the likes of Paulo Ferreira, Ricardo Carvalho and José Bosingwa suggest that, if Chelsea are really keen on these players, they will have to pay top Euro for them. More if Jorge Mendes gets involved.
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