Worth All The Money? Should Leeds Spend Big On Toni Villa?
Leeds United and manager Thomas Christiansen’s bid to improve their squad over the summer has taken some unexpected turns at times, from signing ‘keeper Felix Wiedwald to bringing in Spaniard Samu Saiz. Now they have their eye on another player from the Iberian Peninsula in the shape of Toni Villa.
The talented attacking midfielder, 22, has risen through the ranks at Real Valladolid and was promoted from their B side into first team action last season. But before that, he was in Segunda B with Leonesa, having been allowed to leave on a free transfer.
His 7 goals in 45 games prompted Valladolid to buy him back for their first team ranks at the start of this month and his story just gets weirder by the day. By all accounts, Leonesa want the player back having just sold him, and to do this they want Leeds United to buy him!
A supposed “three-way operation” would see Leeds United buy the player for around €300k from Valladolid before loaning him to Leonesa. This is made possible because of Leeds’ links to the Aspire Foundation via their director Ivan Bravo, who also holds the post of general director at the Qatari based organisation.
The rumours circulating right now are that Valladolid don’t want to enter into this deal as yet because the fee of €300,000 is too low, despite the fact that they paid only 16% of that for him about three weeks ago. To get the deal done, Leeds will need to feel comfortable from a football point of view as well as a business one.
If they believe the player will be worth millions this time next year then why not go ahead? That has to be in serious doubt though and to me, I must say that this deal smacks of something Ivan Bravo will score from, while leaving Leeds out of pocket.
Clubs do get it wrong sometimes. However, for Valladolid to let Villa go for nothing then twelve months later for Leonesa to accept €50,000 for him it would seem even €300,000 is too much for him. It sounds like Leeds are being set up here and if I were Christiansen, I would make it very clear that this player will not be part of any squad which potentially makes it to the Premier League in a year’s time.
Football is a business, yes, but wouldn’t the time of Bravo and the scouts be better spent, finding players who will actually contribute something practically to Leeds’ promotion push this season?