Erling Haaland's agent insisted that the player is happy in Manchester City but suggested a deal will be done once that is no longer the case.
Haaland chose City ahead of Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona last summer after his team calculated that it was worth the physical risk of the intensity of the Premier League to star in a side that was crying out for his talents. The Norwegian signed a five-year deal, although it is thought that there is at least one release clause that could see him leave sooner and his father has made no secret of the ambitions of his son to play across Europe.
Rafaela Pimenta, Haaland's agent, refused to confirm or deny the existence of any clause - "because the mystery is always interesting, It’s always sexier, isn’t it?" - and after sidestepping a question about the player joining Real Madrid she joked that she cannot say no to Barcelona president Joan Laporta. And while she pointed out that Haaland is committed to City, the super-agent referenced her ability to make moves happen when situations change.
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"I have done all the contracts for this agency in the last 25 years. Everybody," she told AS. "There wasn’t a single time that a player said 'I want to go' and couldn’t do it. My hope is that he is always happy wherever he is. And today he is very happy at City. Tomorrow, we’ll have to think about it.
"It is not positive for a footballer to play one season thinking about the next. It’s like you start thinking about your next woman the day you get married. Today, Haaland is ‘married’ but as a lawyer I have to prepare for the possibility that if you need the key [to the door], you can have it."
With Chelsea breaking the British transfer record to sign Enzo Fernandez as part of a monster spending spree that has seen valuations across Europe go up, whoever wants to sign Haaland next will have to pay serious money if there are no clauses to exploit. Pimienta expects Haaland to break all manner of records on the pitch, and as such believes his value to any club could go as high as £1bn.
"We priced Pogba at 80 million and everyone said... it’s incredible! Today many are worth that. The top is at Neymar’s 222 million... the numbers change.
"For me, Haaland is worth 1,000 million. Maybe nobody is going to pay that, but he has the potential he has when he arrives at a club. With it come fans, goals, results, professionalism, digital content, notoriety, sponsors... If you put all this together, his value is an aggregate of many things.
"But the price of a footballer is actually set by a club. I know that nobody is going to pay 700 million for a player, but I am very clear that the value that Erling adds when he arrives at a club is immense, at least 1,000 million.
"He’s in a place that is not yet known in football. He is the peak of the modern player. He will go further than those who came before him because of everything we now know about the human body, the training possibilities, nutrition... He will break all records."
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