Chapter 726: Morning After II
"I could get used to this..." Jason said, patting his thoroughly stuffed stomach as he sat back in his chair, eyeing the now empty plates in front of him.
Turning to Adele who was still eating, he suddenly remembered to ask,
"Why did you say you wanted to talk to me anyway? Like why are you here?" he asked, wondering what could have warranted her flying to Italy with him.
"... Oh, you’ve gotten two offers," Adele said casually, her focus more on her food than the conversation.
"For real? Who?" Jason asked, at alert immediately.
"Tone down your enthusiasm, the offers are not worth considering," Adele replied dismissively.
"Well I still wanna know who made offers. Maybe you can negotiate with them or something if it’s a good club," Jason pressed on, his curiosity having gotten the better of him.
"... Okay," Adele sighed.
"For one, Oporto have made an offer to renew your contract. Your wages would increase to 35000 Euros per week and there are many other bonuses and clauses that could lead to you earning as much as 55000 a week,"
"..." Jason just looked at her with confusion as if she was speaking in another language.
"They’re asking to renew my contract? Are you joking? If you’re joking, I’ll tell you now, it’s not funny," he continued, his annoyance leaking into his tone.
"I’m actually being serious, I can show you the mail," Adele chuckled.
"... What makes them think I would sign another contract with them at this point in my career?" Jason asked, but the question was more directed toward himself than to anyone else.
"That is the million dollar question, isn’t it?" Adele muttered.
"I could think of a few reasons why they would want to do it, but I can’t be sure whether what I’m thinking is correct, so I’m not even going to bother,"
"Anyway, this would be the part where I would ask you what you think about the offer, but from the tone of your voice, I can guess what your answer would be,"
"Still... Would you consider signing another contract with Oporto?" Adele asked for clarity sake, but she expected only one answer and Jason didn’t disappoint her expectations.
"Of course not. That Chapter is closed," Jason replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"I figured... I think I have to mention this though that it would be best to find a way out of Oporto for you before the transfer window closes because they have a clause in your current contract for a six month extension till the end of next season,"
"You don’t want them to be able to activate it," she warned.
"Well, it’s your job to find me offers, so hit me, what’s the other offer?" Jason asked.
"It’s from Uventus. 4 year contract with a guaranteed sixty thousand euros per week. With bonuses, it could rise to eighty thousand a week, so you’ll have an annual salary of about three to four million Euros," Adele replied, still casually eating.
"I thought you said these offers weren’t worth considering? This one is not a bad deal, is it?" Jason asked in confusion because to him, this was miles above any wages he had ever received, both in this life and in his previous one.
"Oh, but darling, it is. Frankly, it’s insulting even," Adele replied immediately, putting down her cutlery and pushing away her food.
"Insulting how?" Jason asked, confused.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know that the wages of players could be a lot higher, it was more like he didn’t think of himself as a player who should be receiving hundreds of thousands of Euros weekly, even though in actuality, he was already at that level.
"How old are you right now?" Adele asked Jason.
"Twenty... I think," Jason replied, mentally calculating.
"At twenty, you’ve played as a starting eleven player in two major clubs in Europe and have won two league titles, one champions league title and also have about five or so domestic cup titles to your name, not to mention individual awards that you’ve raked in ever since you hit the professional football scene,"
"Players with less than half your achievements are making way more than that. Do you know how much PSG started paying Mbape when they signed him in 2017?" Adele asked.
"But that’s Mbappe. The guy is class and also PSG can afford to pay that much, they’ve got that arab oil money," Jason shrugged.
"And this is Uventus! The team with the most history and the deepest pockets in all of Italy!"
"They can’t say they don’t know the quality of player that you are or that they are doubtful of your potential after you’ve just helped them to their first Champions league in over twenty years,"
"And don’t start with that nonsense that they could have won it without you, because that is bullshit. They are a good team, but you were indispensable in helping them win that trophy. They wouldn’t have made it all the way to the finals or even won the trophy without you,"
"Even if they have financial problems and cannot afford to pay a huge salary right off the bat, a more respectable offer would be at least a hundred thousand and the contract period should be shorter, but instead, they’re clearly trying to sign you for a low wage and for a four year period where they wouldn’t be pressed to increase it, for four whole fu*king years!"
Jason could almost see the smoke coming out of Adele’s ears as she explained while fuming.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down, I get it," Jason said, trying to calm her down.
"I... sorry, I just get heated when annoying things like this happen. They make it so hard for me to just do my job and get you a reasonable offer to a team where you can enjoy playing football," Adele sighed, apologizing.
"I get it, I get it. I didn’t really consider them to be my first option anyway. You can take your time and find better offers," Jason said, trying to calm her down.
Internally, he could feel his goodwill towards the Uventus team diminish by quite a bit.
’Are all these clubs just the same and they think they can act anyhow they want?’ he wondered, but soon he began thinking about something else.
He was sure that the Uventus management knew that he was wanted by many teams, so now he was wondering what would make them make an offer like this, knowing it would be detrimental for them in their pursuit of his signature.
It simply didn’t make any sense.
Was he so easy to push around and be scammed? Or did he look like he could be pushed around and scammed?