Diego Costa has been dropped from the Chelsea squad that faces Leicester on Saturday because of the huge offer received for the player from China, though the official reason has been that he has a clash with the fitness coach regarding an injury he’s been carrying for a while now.
Costa, poached from Atletico Madrid for £32m in 2014, has not trained fully this week and boss Antonio Conte got involved in the argument. At the same time, a Chinese club offered Costa £30m per year. Costa’s agent Jorge Mendes is reportedly in China negotiating the deal. Diego Costa wants to leave. Chelsea refuse to let him go.
The 28-year-old has been in superb form this season, as Antonio Conte turned around the career of the troubled red-card prone forward and made him and absolute joy to watch. Costa scored 14 goals in the league already, failing to score in only 6 matches he started, and his tally just adds to the usual incredible workrate this monster striker exhibits week after week. Oh, he also made 5 assists.
Diego Costa’s contract runs out in 2019. It is understood Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich – getting a taste of his own medicine as an indicent proposal lures away one of his players as he did to numerous clubs himself – is not prepared to release the striker from his contract, and refuses to be forced to do so.
Chelsea midfielder Oscar is set to join Shanghai SIPG, coached by former Chelsea boss André Villas-Boas, for a £60m fee.
Arguments against Diego Costa’s move to China usually start and end with the fact that he’s selling his career for money. However, not everyone is offered that much money to travel halfway across the world, and the employee has a right to accept an indecent proposal, perhaps for the sake of his family.
So, yes, Diego Costa should accept the offer – he’s already close to accepting it – and Roman Abramovich should let him go because he purchased him in the same manner. The only problem here is that an external force started poaching players in a system that has its own pecking order and its own rules of who is allowed to poach players and who is not.
It’s ironic that this is happening to Chelsea. A team that hasn’t existed until Abramovich took over and brought his capital – and a club that has made ten £25m+ player purchases since 2011, the £50m for Fernando Torres still being the record.
