Mourinho to make it difficult for Barca to sign Thibaut Courtois
Courtois has a contract with Chelsea until June 2016 but has been playing the last three seasons on loan at Atletico Madrid, where he has proven his undoubtable quality and adaptation to the Spanish League. The English club has already claimed him for next season and has offered a renewal until 2019 – three more seasons.
Acceptance of this contract extension is the crucial step that Mourinho has put before the Belgian goalkeeper in order to have options to continue playing on loan for another team. The other alternative is to negotiate his exit at a price that pleases the West London club and would be considerably higher than what Barcelona would like to pay for him. Mourinho’s decision is final and has already made known his feelings known to Courtois stating that by not accepting the proposal for a contract renewal, he would return to Stamford Bridge and spend the next two years on the bench without playing. And anyone who knows the Portuguese coach, knows he is not bluffing. Coupled with the fact that there is no love lost between Mourinho and Barcelona, he would try to make it as difficult as possible for the Catalan club.
Courtois had held talks with Barcelona early this summer and from the feedback, the Catalan club assumed he would be the ideal substitute for Victor Valdes next season. The player himself had publicly gone on record with a nod to his approval to leave the Chelsea camp, as he did not want to be Cech’s understudy. The Belgian is also the favourite of Barca president Sandro Rosell, among the various keepers Barca has touted for the replacement of Valdés. Courtois knows the Spanish League, he’s been successful, the fans would accept him and his game fits in with the style of the Catalan giants.
The only thing that could present a problem would be the cost of the transfer and his wages, which is around 3M euros per year. With Mourinho’s current stance on the keeper, the operation would be very expensive and would be more than the 25M euros that Barca hoped to pay for him.
Andoni Zubizarreta has also sounded out other goalkeepers such as Ter Stegen, with which he has a spoken agreement and his club Moenchengladbach, would be willing to let him go for 10M euros. However, the German does not offer the same guarantees as Courtois does.
Mourinho i love u for ur action and decisions if cortoise feel is clever after Chelsea honor and respect his order by allowing him to stay in atl Madrid for the number of years he chooses and now he felt he has made name and want to rid on us great Chelsea Fc then he will have to come and honor his contract and rot on d bench !
While I feel Courtois should stop publicly flirting with Barca while still playing for Atletico, and still being under contract with Chelsea(!), pushing a player to sign an extension of his contract and threatening to bench him if he doesn’t will only lead to not 1 belgian player ever signing again for Chelsea. On top both Petr Cech and Courtois are to good to become second violin so its just a question of picking one and making financial profit on the other. Chelsea has been good to Courtois, showing interest, giving him a long term contract, letting him play in a very nice team(Atletico) and extending it. But as I said, simply saying sign again or you will not play for 2 years is not only emotional blackmail but bad strategic thinking, he will not sign which I can’t blame him if the club threatens, and according to Bosman arrest he will just break his contract or go to court who will prove him right, as while a club can bench him they cannot threaten publicly to deny him work if he doesn’t sign a new contract. As a lawyer myself, I can tell you this, if this is the way its gonna end up, Barca may get Courtois way sooner as there isn’t a court in the world who vould back that Chelsea threat. Interesting story however.