Chelsea reopen talks, ‘willing to improve’ Enzo Fernández offer to €120m — reports

Benfica may be wanting to increase Enzo Fernández’s release clause to €150m to ward off the likes of Chelsea, Chelsea, and Chelsea, but before they do that, Chelsea may be making one more serious attempt.

Is he worth that much? Who knows, but he may be worth €120m to us.

TyC Sports’ César Luis Merlo, who was at the forefront of reporting during our first attempt at the start of the month, claims that Chelsea have “informed” Benfica that we are “willing to improve the offer to €120m” — and this time without any players in part-exchange floated, however still in “various payments”, i.e. some sort of installment plan.

The Telegraph’s Matt Law has added that we “reopened talks”, which could be a great sign indeed.

€120m is Fernández’s (current) release clause, but we seem reluctant to pay that since it has to be paid in a lump sum and carries with it massive tax implications, for which we also have to foot the bill. Offering the same amount to Benfica directly would ensure that they get the same amount in the end (though not all at once). It was thought that we had already made such an offer earlier, but it turns out that (probably) wasn’t the case — and is partly what got them all upset with us.

But it might be the case now, so we’ll see if Benfica are in fact willing to budge from their strong “no-talks-only-clause” stance.