Leeds United set to cancel Helder Costa contract amid ‘complicated’ transfer issue
If Helder Costa doesn’t secure a transfer away from Leeds United this month the club are “expected” to agree a “severance deal” to end his stay with the club early, according to Graham Smyth.
The Yorkshire Evening Post journalist reported via Twitter on 7 September that a move to Saudi Arabia would now be “complicated” with the 29-year-old set to play for Angola ahead of the Saudi transfer deadline the same day.
On the paper’s website he went further on the “options remaining” which include a move to Qatar, Russia or Turkey, but if one doesn’t “materialise” before the other windows close an agreement between the winger the Whites should be reached to make him a free agent a year before his contract expir
Costa was a £15million signing from Wolves in 2020 [Leeds Live] when Victor Orta and Marcelo Bielsa were still at the club, having spent a season on loan already, but has spent the past two campaigns at Valencia and Al-Ittihad respectively.
According to Smyth Daniel Farke is said to have “appreciated Costa’s honesty” in making clear early on this summer he saw now future for himself at Leeds United, where others waited to reveal their intentions until later in the window.
If neither the ex-Benfica and Monaco man or the club have any plans to prolong their relationship then it makes sense for it to be a transfer imminently or a parting of the ways.
Costa hasn’t been a going concern at Elland Road for some time and now with just a year left on his contract it looks like a compromise over the cost of it could be reached between either side if no club snaps him up in the next couple of weeks.
Interest from Saudi Arabia makes sense since he spent last season there ahead of the massive influx this summer, but if he is due to play within hours of the deadline it perhaps suggests that avenue has closed.
Victor Orta’s transfer record has taken a major hammering this summer with the exodus of last season’s signings, largely for little in return, so with Costa possibly set to be paid off after two years out of the side it only adds to that.
Having made 46 total appearances during the previous promotion season on loan it perhaps makes the £15m outlay understandable, but after his involvement and production almost exactly halved the next year before spending nearly all the rest of his Whites career elsewhere it is another move that didn’t pay off.
Luckily for Farke he is still well stocked in wide areas, despite Luis Sinisterra’s deadline day exit to Bournemouth, so any hopes of Costa being used at Elland Road would be fanciful and it appears that, one way or another, his time with the club is set to come to an end.
In other Leeds United news, a key Whites player unexpectedly stayed at the club during the summer despite being wanted in La Liga.
