The race for Enzo Fernandez’s signature is heating up, and an interesting report emerged on Tuesday evening about the Argentine midfielder.
Indeed, according to the Daily Record, Chelsea are readying a club-record bid to sign the reported Liverpool target in January.
It’s easy to write this story off as being nothing more than another transfer whisper off the rumour mill. After all, why would a Scottish newspaper know anything about Chelsea bidding for an Argentine player in Portugal?
However, what is interesting is that this article was penned by none other than Duncan Castles. An incredibly reputable journalist who is widely known for having close ties to Jorge Mendes – the agent who actually represents Fernandez.
Therefore, it would be fair to assume that this information is accurate and that there will be an imminent offer from Chelsea.
However, on first glance, there is one element of this story that doesn’t quite add up.
Indeed, this report states that Chelsea have proposed an offer in excess of the €127m that Benfica received for Joao Felix back in 2019, but anyone following Fernandez for a while will know that this is unlikely.
It’s been widely reported by reputable sources, such as Fabrizio Romano, that Fernandez has a release clause in his contract set at €120m (£105m), so why would Chelsea bid in excess of €127m? It just doesn’t make sense. That is, however, until you dig a bit deeper.
Castles’ story was queried on Twitter, and he cleared things up stating that the release clause actually has to be activated by the player and that there is a huge tax liability that comes with that, so any interested parties, be it Liverpool or Chelsea, may have to pay over the odds to get this one done.
This all seems to be getting very complicated, and one thing is for sure, the picture being painted around Fernandez’s future isn’t quite clear yet.
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