The links that emerged late in the transfer window regarding a possible move from AC Milan to Barcelona for Rafael Leao were wide of the mark for several reasons, a journalist has claimed.
It was back on August 21 that several of the front pages of the newspapers in Spain were speaking about a move from Barcelona for Leao late in the window, given their failure to land Nico Williams from Athletic Bilbao.
Bar Canaletes even claimed yesterday that Barcelona president Joan Laporta was desperate to add another star name to his team and he settled on Leao in the latter stages of the transfer window, even sending a memorandum of understanding to LaLiga stating their and Nike’s intentions to sign a deal.
However, Barcelona have been struggling to register players because of league rules, which meant they needed them to give them the green light to go ahead with the deal for the former Sporting and Lille attacker.
Matteo Moretto has provided some background on the Leao speculation during a column for the Daily Briefing and he provided various reasons why it was never anything concrete.
“From the information I have, Rafael Leao’s name being linked with Barcelona in the final days of the transfer market was a lot of noise without a huge amount behind it. There was nothing concrete, and I’ll explain the reasons why the deal would not or did not happen,” he said.
“First of all, and foremost, Leao wanted to stay at Milan. Secondly, he had no intention of changing teams in the final stages of the transfer market. Thirdly, Milan don’t have any intention of selling one of their best players in the final stages of the transfer market either.
“Fourth, Leao has a clause of €175m, and no doubt, Milan would eb asking for a lot of money, and in the final days of the market, even more so. They would have asked the world.
“For me, we’re speaking about a story that never really existed. With Barcelona, they tried for Nico Williams, and it didn’t come off. Then they went for Dani Olmo, and they did manage that deal. That was it. They didn’t really go for a major signing at left wing after that.”
