Silly season begins

With the Clausura season (thankfully) behind us, we can now look forward to three months of unsubstantiated gossip and trade rumors. Since I tend not to follow most of it, seeing as it’s usually speculation and not news, I’ll try to only focus on player deals that are imminent, involving big clubs, or on former River greats (see my post below on Saviola possibly going to Real Madrid.) In other words, Diego Galvan being sought by Olimpo? Not so big news.

One big player being mentioned is Fernando Belluschi, who after a disappointing Clausura, could be on his way out. Steaua Bucarest has apparently made an offer of $16 million for the captain, and Napoli and an unnamed Spanish team are interested too. But it gets complicated. Apparently, River sold a part of Belluschi’s rights to FC Locarno for $5 million last year, and as part of that deal, the Swedish club will own his transfer rights beginning July 1st. So basically, if River doesn’t come to a decision before the end of the month, Locarno could loan the player out to any European club and River won’t get a dime.

My thoughts are up in the air on this one. In Argentine football, once a player shows any kind of skill, he almost immediately gets interest from a foreign club, and teams usually have no choice but to put him on the market to stay financially afloat. Just look at the $18 million we got from the sale of Higuain last season to Real Madrid. So yeah, River could use an influx of cash to strengthen the squad. But as Victor Zapata revealed in his interview last week, the club never recovered from the absence of Marcelo Gallardo; can the club stand to lose another captain?

Category: Team News, Transfer Rumors