When Chelsea allowed Deco to move to Brazilian side Fluminense several seasons ago, they didn't demand a transfer fee from the club in return. Instead, Chelsea received the right of first refusal on three youngsters in the Flu academy, and varying amounts of their economic rights as well.The most exciting of those three prospects for me was Wallace, a young right back that has featured throughout the varying age groups of the Brazilian youth setup. With that in mind, this tweet caught my eye this morning:
Napoli are close to signing
— Paulo Freitas (@Cynegeticus) August 1, 2012#Fluminense's right-back Wallace for around 2m Euros, says 'Gazzetta dello Sport'.
The details of the right of first refusal were always a bit less than clear, but the general consensus seems to be that this opportunity to match any offer has now passed. What hasn't changed, however, is the fact that Chelsea own 40 percent of the economic rights of the youngster, so they will potentially be making a fair bit of money here.
Should Wallace indeed be sold for 2 million euros, Chelsea would be looking at about 800,000 euros for their trouble. That's not very far off of what we just paid Lens for Thorgan Hazard, and combined with the extra income from HSV's sale of Gokhan Tore we've covered about half of what we paid Werder Bremen for Marko Marin with older bits of business. If true, it will be a bit disappointing that we never got to see the youngster at Cobham, but making a few euros for letting Deco go several seasons ago doesn't really sound like a terrible consolation prize, now does it?
Related: The prospects from the Deco deal / Follow us on Twitter 