After much speculation over the last few days, Real Madrid has finally made a bid for Marco Asensio. There hasn't been an official statement, but all of the press in Mallorca is reporting the same thing... considering that the board constantly leaks stuff to the journalists that favour them, it must be true since all sources are saying the same thing.

Marco's release clause is 4.5M€ (and it will be 9M€ after the winter window). According to all sources, Madrid is offering 3.7M€ and a loan for the promise to loan him back to Mallorca for the rest of the season (if they break the promise they'd have to pay Mallorca 800k€, which would raise the amount to the equivalent of the release clause).

This leaves Mallorca in an akward situation. If they don't take it, Madrid can just pay the release clause and have him play in Castilla or loan him out to wherever they want, which means Mallorca would lose their best player with half a season to go.

It gets worse because Marco Asensio's release clause is ilegal to begin with. 18 year old Marco is still earning a youth team salary (like 15k€ per year or so), and FIFA rules say that release clauses must be at least somewhat proportional to the player's salary. The player could report the club to the FIFA, and he'd be able to leave for a ridiculous amount. However, Marco's agent has said that the player loves his club and would never do such a thing.

It's a pretty bad situation for Mallorca. In the best case scenario they'd convince Marco to pressure Madrid into making them pay the full release clause while also keeping him loaned in Mallorca. But that doesn't seem likely at all. Mallorca might aswell just take those 3.7M€+loan... if they keep Madrid happy and they achieve promotion to Primera at the end of season, it would be likely that Madrid would accept loaning him to Mallorca again the following season.





In other (sad) news: the demolition of Mallorca's old stadium (Lluis Sitjar, which hosted our games from 1945 to 1999) began 2 years ago, exactly 69 years after it was finished.

Tricky situation. They'll probs take the loan and the 3,7m if they think twic.

I was watching funny football chants eariler on youtube...

'There's only one Emile Heskey, One Emile Heskey, He used to be shite, now he's alright, Walking in a Heskey wonderland'



Hope that if he goes, he does so gracefully. One thing that grinds my gears is self centered players, and if he does leave in this manner, I hope he suffers somewhere in his career for it, or it comes back to haunt him in missed opportunity xD

Yeah, so far he's handling the situation ok. His agent said that he wants to play for Madrid, but that he'd never report Mallorca to FIFA because he loves the club and is greatful to them for giving him the chance to develop as a player. He also wants to stay on loan until june because he wants to help the club promote and leave with Mallorca playing in Primera.

The fans are dissapointed that he wants to leave at such a young age, but it's understandable that he'd want to go to Madrid. It's the biggest club in Spain, and that obviously is very tempting. He's already outgrowing Mallorca and, unless promotion is achieved, it would be flat out terrible for his carreer to stay in the club. The club is in a mess aswell, with the board in constant turmoil, so that doesn't exactly make it inviting for any player to stay,

If all goes well as expected and he leaves without the FIFA involved, he will still be loved in Mallorca. We can only thank him for what he has done for us, and everyone can understand him wanting to move to Madrid. We all knew something like this was bound to happen anyway.

Personally I'm happy that he's chosing Madrid and not another club.

When a team like RM come knocking, you don't say no... But his loyalty, and understanding that he needs the first team football for his own development already say a lot about his character. But if he does go in January, surely you can put the money to good use and strengthen other areas of the team and get strength in depth. This is where my team are doing a lot better this season, that we always have someone to take another position, and allows flexibility with formations too.

The problem is, there's an on going war in the board... there's a lot of uncertainty, and nobody knows what we will look like next season, so we really need to go all in for promotion this season. Plus, even if we had money, the board would spend it in raising their salaries instead of signing players, like they did this summer...

If we loose Marco Asensio now, even if we make some decent signings, we'd need to change everything. The team plays around Marco. We have good players, but it's Marco Asensio the one that carries us.

If we sold him now, it wouldn't be too bad aslong as he stays on loan, since we'd get to keep him AND get some money. But if he leaves, then we'd have to rework the team, and there's no time for that when you're half way through the season.

I get that mate, sounds like the real issue is the same as many clubs have... Greedy boardroom...

I think that each countries FA need to start combating this as the game is being ruined by stuff that doesn't matter on the pitch, but is becoming an issue and affecting play

I think it would all work out better if shitty boards and owners were sent to prison or forced to pay huge fines and compensation towards the clubs they ruin... instead of punishing the clubs they don't care about by deducting points, relegating them or whatever, they should punish the guys in charge. I'm pretty sure every board memeber from every club would begin caring about their clubs then.

It is one of the really annoying parts of football, and something that does need fixing, as the current system doesn't stop the money coming in (Fans still buy tickets and merchendise, no matter how many points deducted).

Well, some of you Spaniards may remember the name Juninho Paulista, from Athletico Madrid... He is a club legend for my team, and is making a guest appearance here today at the game vs. Blackburn Rovers Listening on the radio as not enough money to go... Waiting for the cheers

Nice, Juninho is very dearly remembered by Atlético fans here. He was one of La Liga's best players when he played here... those injuries though