AC Milan winger, Rafael Leao would have to pay his former club, Sporting CP, nothing less than €16.5 million for terminating his contract without the consent of the club.
Rafael Leao is a product of the Sporting CP youth system. He was in the system between 2012 and 2017. On February 5, 2018, the Portuguese club decided to promote him to the club’s senior team.
At the end of the 2017-2018 football season in Portugal, Sporting CP failed to qualify for a UEFA Champions League spot. The development angered the club’s supporters to the extent some of the supporters stormed the club’s training facility and attacked the club’s players.
Rafael Leao who was one of the victims of the attack decided to terminate his contract with the Portuguese side. Afterward, he moved to the French Ligue 1 side, LOSC Lille.
The 22-year-old Portuguese winger scored 8 goals and provided 2 assists in 26 games in all competitions for Lille in his season-long spell in France.
The performance of the youngster at Lille attracted the attention of AC Milan and decided to pay Lille €29.50 million for the services of Rafael Leao on August 1, 2019.
Since then, the Portuguese youngster has played 97 times in all competitions for the Italian club in which he scored 21 goals and provided 14 assists.
So far in the 2021-2022 season, Rafael Leao has played 24 times for AC Milan; he has scored 8 goals and provided 5 assists in all competitions.
🇵🇹 AC Milan's Rafael Leão has already completed 13 take-ons in 2022 🔴⚫️
— LiveScore (@livescore) January 19, 2022
More than any other player in Europe's top 5 leagues 🌪 pic.twitter.com/8ZIli0qWRu
His performance at AC Milan earned him his debut in Portugal’s national team on October 9, 2021. Since then, he has played three times for the team.
Amid his rapid career growth, Sporting CP has been dragging him through the Arbitral Court of Sport for leaving the club when his contract had not expired. During the legal battle, his legal representatives argued that Rafael Leao left the Portuguese club based on mutual consent.
But the Arbitral Court of Sport ruled in favor of Sporting CP and ordered Leao to pay the club €16.5 million as compensation instead of the €40 million release clause included in his contract with Sporting then.
After the judgment, the footballer’s legal representatives took the case to the appeal court but the appeal court also ruled in favor of Sporting which means that the Portuguese youngster must pay the Portuguese club €16.5m.
Unfortunately for the youngster, AC Milan don’t have any business in the legal battle which means that Rafael Leao would have to cough out the money on his own.
However, the footballer has only one channel to turn the judgment around which is through the supreme court. Hence, he has to depend on his legal representatives to take the case to the supreme court and hope that his legal team would be able to convince the court to overturn the judgment.
