A legal battle could be on the horizon for Juventus, as Santos claim his contract actually runs to December 2023 and they’ll consider a ‘€15m offer.’
Juve had agreed personal terms with the 19-year-old’s agent and he reportedly signed a pre-contract agreement valid from January 1, 2022.
That was under the assumption his contract with Santos was due to expire on December 31, 2021.
However, Santos associate Sergio Canozzi told Sky Sport Italia this evening that is not necessarily the case.
Kaio Jorge signed the contract at age 16 in 2018, and under FIFA rules, a minor cannot sign for longer than three years.
However, Santos claim the Brazilian Federation does allow for five-year deals and FIFA will respect the decisions of local federations.
If true, that would throw everything into question and Juve’s pre-contract agreement would be invalid.
“We raised the player and took on the costs of his growth process. The player has a contract with Santos until 2023. We are talking to various clubs and are waiting for the offers to arrive.
“We don’t want to hold Kaio Jorge back, but we are waiting for offers,” Canozzi told Sky Sport Italia.
“We’re talking to Juventus and told (director Federico) Cherubini that if he wants to talk to Santos, he can do it via Marcelo Galan, who is in Italy right now.
“Benfica made an offer, which was not accepted by his agent. It could be improved, but Benfica are having problems with what happened to their President and we preferred to work with Italy, which is where the player wants to go.”
Milan had also seemingly agreed personal terms before Juve got involved, but Canozzi insists they have not approached the club directly.
“I have not had contact with Milan, I don’t know if Marcelo did, as he has our authority to negotiate in Italy and France. I know there’s interest from Monaco, but we have no concrete offers.
“In a normal situation, we’d have sold Kaio to Europe for €20-25m, without an agent proposing strange things. At this moment, an offer of €15m would be taken into consideration.”
Il #Santos dice la sua sul contratto di #KaioJorge. E fissa il prezzo del cartellino https://t.co/T01N1eUvHp
— Gianluca Di Marzio (@DiMarzio) July 29, 2021