Greatest Of All Legends - Chapter 761

Capítulo 761: Transfer Rodeo: Explosive Rumors

“Stall for now,”

“Let’s see whether some other clubs will make an offer, but if there’s nothing by… let’s say a month from now, push ahead with Tottenham,” Jason said, nodding thoughtfully.

‘Breaking an age-old curse might be an interesting experience,’ he thought to himself.

“What should I do with the rest of the offers? The other clubs?”

“Should I reject them outright or tell them you’re still considering things?” Adele asked.

“Just string them along for now, don’t give them anything definite, don’t want to close out our options,” Jason shrugged.

“Alright,” Adele nodded, thinking to herself that she wouldn’t stop there.

If she wanted to cause a sense of urgency among the teams trying to sign Jason, she would have to play with the media a bit.

Luckily, she had been collecting contacts and favors for moments like these and already had a plan to blow up Jason’s wantaway attitude from Oporto.

“Today is the 28th, right? Players begin resuming at their clubs from the first of next month for the preseason preparations, right?”

“Will you be heading back to Porto then?” Adele suddenly remembered to ask, having some thoughts about this matter.

“About that… no,” Jason said, scratching the back of his head.

“I have a bit of an extra break since I went for International duties earlier and closed out my season a lot later than the other players, but even then, I think I’ll take another two weeks or another month of…”

“Depends on how I feel at the time,” Jason replied.

“Another two weeks to a month? Why?” Adele asked, surprised. She knew Jason wasn’t one to play truant.

“If those guys can still attempt to get me to renew my contract with them after everything that has happened, then I think I have the right to react in a way I feel like as well,”

“Really need to drive home the fact that I won’t be staying. I can start working on getting back to match fitness even without being at the club,” Jason picked up the menu to order, feeling hungry.

“Oh. Okay, you do that,” Adele muttered, thinking to herself that this fitted very well into her plans. She had been thinking of how to ask him to play along, but now that he was taking action on his own, all was well and good.

“Huh? You won’t try to change my mind?” Jason asked, surprised by her acquiescence.

Her lips pursed, Adele looked up at him with a mischievious expression.

“… I don’t even want to know what you’re planning. Just don’t do too much,” It was clear that she was up to no good.

Anyway, it didn’t matter much. He would be a first-time offender for whatever he was about to do so all he would end up with was deduction of a few weeks wages at most even if he took things a bit far.

***

The days passed and while Jason had headed back to America for an actual break, his media duties over, the world clock kept turning and things kept moving.

The beginning of the month of July saw most football players head back to their clubs to begin the preparations for pre-season and get back to match fitness, preparing for the new seasons.

Meanwhile, the transfer market had reached a feverish high with deals being signed, rumors spreading, new coaches arriving at their new stations, bringing their teams with them or joining the clubs as they were.

All in all, things were moving along in the football and the preparations for the new season was underway all over the professional world.

As the days went along, the fans could keep up with what was occurring at the clubs thanks to the club’s social media pages and a few other sources of internal information.

While the fans of other clubs were getting excited about things like new transfers, new jerseys and new addition to the coach staff or the sponsors, the Oporto fans were the first to notice that among the faces resuming at the club for preseason, one face was nowhere to be found.

With reports coming from trusted sources that Jason would not be resuming for a little more thanks to his calendar the previous season, the curious thoughts of the fans were calmed for a bit.

However, soon enough, rumors started showing up regarding interest from other clubs and their thoughts to sweep him up for cheap and sure enough, that sparked outrage from Oporto fans, Jason’s fans and Nigerian fans.

The Nigerian fans were especially incensed as this wasn’t the first time big clubs had tried to sign Nigerian talents for less than what was their perceived worth, however they could only rage within themselves.

The same went for Jason’s personal fans.

The Oporto fans were not as docile. Taking to the social media pages, they expressed their disappointment and annoyance over the situation.

They already knew that keeping Jason at the club was not something that was likely to happen due to the unwillingness of the player himself to stay, however, the fans hoped to make at least a bit of money from Jason so they could get themselves a replacement at least.

Already unhappy with how the interested clubs were only trying to sign him on a free transfer instead of paying a huge fee that would greatly help their finances, seeing them try to sign him for a very low wage didn’t make them happier.

They had figured out that the plan of those big clubs was to sign Jason on a free transfer and then pay a fee to trigger the contract ahead of time, however, the fee to trigger the contract ahead of time would depend on how much the wage conditions said.

The wage conditions would serve as a way to measure the player’s worth since there wasn’t a transfer fee which meant the higher the wage bill, the higher the fee they would get when the club tried to get Jason to join them ahead of time.

Even if they offered Jason a wage bill of over 200k Euros, they still wouldn’t be paying any more than 20 to 30 million Euros to get him to join them within the current transfer window.

Yet these people were still trying to scrounge on such a low fee for such a quality player and in turn further reducing how much they would have to pay Oporto to add Jason to their ranks.

How could the Oporto fans not be angry?

While the media was effortlessly turning the football world upside down with all sorts of news everyday, another particular interesting piece of news suddenly caught quite a lot of attention.

Jason had been allowed an extra two weeks of break due to his situation, however 15 days into the month of July and news started surfacing that Jason had yet to report to the Oporto team’s training grounds.

The rumors exploded yet again.