The Blues News

“Let me go to Chelsea, pleeeeease.” Hulk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hulk scored in a loosing cause for Brazil, against Mexico, in the Gold match at the Olympics. Unfortunately, Oscar missed a chance in injury time to level the score 2-2.

Poor chap Oscar. He will be taunted for this miss by the media and rival fans, overshadowing his good performances in the rest of the tournament. Just a reminder for them haters.  Oscar scored a hat-trick against Portugal in the U20 World cup held in 2011 at Columbia. He single-handedly won that game for Brazil.

Sorry, I had to get the Oscar heartbreak out of my system. Now to the Hulk news.

Sky Sports has an interesting news for us Chelsea fans. Pinta da Costa, Porto President, has reiterated that he won’t let Hulk leave for an amount less than his release clause, which is €100Million.

Lets do an autopsy on this report, from Sky Sports, shall we. I’m going to rely on my reading-between-the-lines skill, which is not world renowned, yet.

We will look at some of the statements from Pinta da Costa, Porto President, and Teodoro Fonseca, Hulk’ agent.

“I didn’t meet Hulk’s agent. Hulk is a player with a buyout fee and if any club want him, they just need to pay that, they don’t need to come here,” said da Costa.

Noting new in that statement from Pinta da Costa. He has maintained, right from the beginning, that he wants the prospective buyer to pay €100M for Hulk. Same old – same old story. 007

“Hulk will only leave if it interests both Porto and the player. But so far nothing happened to make me think we’ll reach that point.”

The interesting word, for me, here is “both”.

Now various clubs have been linked with Hulk. PSG, Spurs [That is right. Probably the AVB angle], Real Madrid and more recently, Zenit St Petersburg.

If I had to guess, I would say there are multiple offers on Costa’s table for Hulk. Chelsea being the obvious one and maybe one other club. Lets call the mystery club X. Chelsea’s offer may not be acceptable by Costa’s valuation while Club X’s offer maybe a sweet one for Costa.

Hulk, has said in the past, that he wants to move to a tougher league, EPL, and play in a team that is in the Champions League as well. He wants those two combinations to help push his case for Brazil National Team selection. The Selecao will be hosting the 2014 World Cup and Hulk wants to play for his country. Can you blame him?

The Club X, even if they are offering better financial terms, may not be attractive for Hulk. The Club X and the league it is playing in may not suit Hulk’s ambition.

Therein lies the problem. Hulk wants Chelsea. Costa wants Club X.

That could explain, “Hulk will only leave if it interests both Porto and the player”. They could be disagreeing on their respective choice of club.

Lets see what Teodoro Fonseca had to say to Radio Renascenca:

“We sometimes want a player to stay, but the conditions aren’t the best. Sometimes clubs have to give up a right, a player, or a person to keep their structure. People come and go, but the clubs stay.”

Now I’m not sure if Fonseca was responding directly to Costa. However, it could be based on the talks, Costa and Fonseca had among themselves.

It seems to me that Fonseca wants Costa to accept one of the offers for Hulk. By “give up a right”, he could be referring to the €100M release clause.

It is no secret that no club will be ready to meet that freakishly high release clause. There is every possibility that Costa has a set figure in mind, that is relatively lower than the release clause, but still unacceptable to the buyer.

Porto were reported to be facing a financial crunch and that was seen as a reason for them to cash in on their players. “Give up a player, or a person to keep their structure.” could be referring to that. Fonseca could be saying, “Mr.Costa, it is time to sell Hulk and use the money wisely to settle your debt. Be a gentleman.”

Another thing we have to remind ourselves is that even Fonseca was playing hard ball in the early part of this transfer saga. He had mentioned that the buyer has to meet the valuation of Porto for Hulk. Then a few weeks later, he went on to say, Porto are more than happy to keep Hulk, give him a revised contract with higher wages, and build a team around him.

Another point, Fonseca owns 5% of Hulk’s player rights. There were reports in the media that the impasse over Hulk’s transfer to Chelsea was due to third party rights. There was a dispute over who is to pay Fonseca and Rentistas, his old club, who have a 10% stake in Hulk.

From Fonseca’s latest statements, it seems as if, he is getting his share of the deal, along with agent fees, that he had bargained for. He is probably happy with the offer.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Costa is getting what he had asked for. This could be a reason for the difference in opinion between Costa and Fonseca.

All this reasoning could be just a fidget of my imagination.There is a possibility that it could be correct as well.

I still think Hulk will be sold sooner than later. I could be wrong, yes. The basis for that reasoning being, Hulk’s market value is at its peak. It may go up with more top notch performances. However, Hulk has pretty much achieved what he possibly could at Porto. League Championship titles, Europa Cup, trebles and what not.

He almost lost out on a Olympic berth. His National Team coach may have suggested him to move to a tougher league. Good performances in a tougher league would help give his performances more exposure.

Now that the Olympics is over, the Hulk news will generate more steam. Like a few others, I too am starting to think, this transfer saga could go on till the deadline day. Whether or not Hulk transfer’s to Chelsea is anyone’s guess.