A potential breakthrough was teased, but the only break that arrived is the weekend, which will likely see no further progress in Chelsea’s drawn-out process of switching head coaches. Not that there’s been much progress anyway, with Conte technically remaining a Chelsea employee, Sarri technically remaining a Napoli employee, and the rest of us remaining ever bemused by all this nonsense.
SportItalia journalist Alfredo Pedulla, who’s either running the biggest long-con in transfer market history or is having to find new ways to report the same old [SHOE] each night, brings tidings of a successful Friday summit, which actually only managed to result in a better deal for Sarri himself and not much beyond that. Can we really call it successful then?
While previous reports put the new head coach’s contract at €5m per year for 2 years with a club option for 1 more, Friday’s meeting has Sarri’s representatives taking an offer of €6m per year for 3 years with an option for a further 2 back to Naples (or wherever Sarri’s hanging out these days)! And here we thought that personal terms had been agreed a long time ago!
Can anything that’s reported be trusted at all?
— Alfredo Pedullà (@AlfredoPedulla) June 22, 2018
While there may be a new set of personal terms, Pedulla claims that the previous story of the €5m “transfer fee” (i.e. “gentlemen’s agreement”) and associated clause of “non-belligerence” between Chelsea and Napoli is still the plan of record and it still is expected to conclude before July 1. Of course, De Laurentiis is playing coy.
How do you say “shrug emoji” in Italian?