Several sources out of Brazil have been reporting today that Chelsea FC will be re-entering the fray for young phenom Lucas Moura with an improved bid in the region of €35 million. Normally I'd write this kind of thing off as typical media speculation around the deadline, but several of the sources reporting this are ones that have been especially informed in our Piazon and Deco dealings previously. For those of you who may have missed it, we did a little profile of Lucas here last month.
The popular rumor around Brazil is that it will be easier to convince Sao Paulo to sell than it will be to convince Moura to leave. Lucas is fairly well paid in Brazil, if most reports are to be believed he's currently the third highest paid player in Brazil. He's also got additional financial incentive to stay around Brazil and let his value climb as high as possible. Where most players economic rights are controlled by a team or combination of the club and an investor, Lucas actually manged to acquire 20% of his own economic rights when he signed his last contract. Twenty percent of the eventual fee for Moura to move to Europe will go directly in the players pocket, so watching his value climb can only help the player financially. Largely because of this I'd rule out all but 4-5 clubs in Europe as potential suitors when you consider both the wages it will take to sign the youngster and the fee to make Sao Paulo part ways with him.
Moura is starting to look like a very legitimate target of the club, much in the mold of Javier Pastore and Luka Modric this past summer. I'd be pretty happy to see us push a little higher than we're rumored to be at to get this one done now even if it requires us to allow him to remain in Brazil until June. Stay tuned, we're probably going to hear a lot more about Moura in the coming weeks as the transfer window heats up.