You know, there's an element to the Botman and Sanches rumors that keep bothering me. Why would there be so much chatter about players who would cost quite a bit?
Vlasic, Correa, those were not invented stories, they were true, but we just didn't see eye-to-eye on the evaluations. Correa would be a great RW for us, but whatever, I'm thinking: why in the fuck would we go to Lille for Sanches and Botman, what is the reason?
So Leao lost his appeal, and he'll probably have to appeal to the Portuguese Supreme Court, maybe he'll take it to an EU court, who knows. But. I would imagine if you're Leao, you can bring in Lille because they financially benefited from what happened. We aren't on the hook, because we paid Lille money, but Lille can be liable to Sporting for the money they made.
I bring this up because, I'm fucking so confused as to why Botman and Sanches, two expensive players, why would Milan be serious about either of them, or both?
And then it clicked, Lille are going to be on the hook for Leao's sale. The new ownership doesn't matter, the club will be able to be brought in as a third party, I'd be surprised if Leao's legal team doesn't do that, and I imagine that might be a place from which we can negotiate with them.
Anyway, it's just a theory, but if I was in Milan and Elliott's position, I'd use that pressure point, especially if Lille have some sort of percentage of a Leao sale, as Leao is probably not going to be bearing the brunt of this decision himself, Lille are going to be dragged into it.
Again, all speculation.