Chapter 786: Chapter 47: Privilege
Whenever it’s an international match day, Chen Zhong always receives media attention from multiple sources.
Although this player from China is still very young, just in his early 20s, the fact that he has yet to be selected for the national team is indeed a strange occurrence. During this period, the Spain National Team launched another round of lobbying, hoping Chen Zhong would give up his Chinese nationality and join the Spain National Team.
This statement has recently stirred up quite a commotion, even causing some waves domestically.
Raiola and Pimenta immediately called Chen Zhong. Actually, in international football, changing allegiance to another country due to inability to play for one’s national team is not unusual.
For instance, Pepe, now playing for Real Madrid, was once selected for the Brazilian national team. He was even Brazilian in the FIFAOL series during the 06 season, but now he plays for the Portugal National Team.
It’s worth mentioning that after Cristiano Ronaldo’s injury, the club finally managed to basically finalize the contract renewal deal with the Portugal international, Pepe, amidst many challenges.
This also means that this Brazilian will continue to serve Real Madrid for a long time in the future.
This piece of news was also reported by Marca, which stated: Pepe accepted the annual salary of about 4 million Euro offered by Real Madrid, with the contract lasting until 2015 and an automatic extension based on certain conditions.
According to reliable sources, the club also consulted Chen Zhong’s opinion on this contract, and after various discussions, the player and the club reached a final agreement.
Marca reported that the matter is basically resolved and can be said to be finalized, although the club and the player have not officially announced it — Real Madrid is likely to officially announce the renewal with Pepe after the season ends, but there’s no doubt that Pepe will continue to defend Real Madrid’s jersey for the next four years.
Pepe’s new contract with Real Madrid is set to end in 2015, but he will automatically receive a new one if he meets a series of conditions stipulated in the contract.
Meanwhile, his current contract with Real Madrid was set to end in June 2012, and Pepe once demanded an annual salary of 6 million Euro from the club, a high salary that Real Madrid couldn’t agree to, which was the biggest obstacle in their previous negotiations. Despite Pepe being very important to Real Madrid, he can be quite impulsive on the field, causing trouble, and the club’s salary hierarchy cannot be disturbed.
In the end, both parties reached an agreement at 4 million Euro, with the new contract taking effect from next season. Pepe’s annual salary also rose from 1.8 million Euro to 4 million Euro, which is at an upper-middle level within the team.
Marca revealed that Real Madrid decided to keep Pepe based on several factors. Firstly, they believe Pepe is one of the best central defenders in the world, and Mourinho has always insisted that Real Madrid needs Pepe, especially with important stages of the season approaching. Real Madrid wants to give Pepe the greatest sense of trust.
Secondly, letting Pepe go and bringing in a replacement not only means the club would have to spend over 20 million Euro in transfer fees, but also raise questions about whether the new player can adapt to Real Madrid and how long the adaptation period would be, while giving Pepe a 5-year contract with a 4 million Euro annual salary would only cost Real Madrid about 20 million Euro.
Moreover, the newly introduced player would have to be paid as well. The club’s technical department is also satisfied with Pepe, believing that there is no better central defender than Pepe in the transfer market. Recently, agents recommended Juventus’ Chiellini and AC Milan’s Thiago Silva to Real Madrid, but the higher-ups of Real Madrid believe that Pepe is still the right fit for Real Madrid.
"Rest assured, you definitely have a place at Real Madrid." Before the meeting, Chen Zhong said to Pepe, patting him: "I’ve talked with them, now what you need to do is go in, look at the contract, and decide whether you want to stay."
Once Chen Zhong wanted to keep his friends at Real Madrid, but after the experiences of Juan Mata, Negredo, and Granero, he suddenly realized that keeping friends around is not necessarily a good thing; everyone needs to be responsible for their own careers.
After entering, Real Madrid’s higher-ups also expressed their stance to Pepe, wanting the player to feel the club’s utmost trust in him and hoping Pepe would be at ease because he appeared a bit overly excited and made several dangerous moves in last week’s Champions Cup match against Lyon.
For Pepe, staying at Real Madrid was also his first choice. Indeed, clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea, and Manchester City were interested in him, but Pepe’s mindset was not to consider joining those clubs until negotiations with Real Madrid broke down, and ultimately he reached an agreement with Real Madrid.
After reaching an agreement, Pepe also chatted with Chen Zhong about the national team matter, and of course, he also expressed amazement about his renewal experience this time.
In his words, Pepe had no complaints about Chen Zhong’s salary, even though it was more than three times of Pepe’s post-raise salary and about ten times more than his pre-raise salary.
In their conversation, Pepe said he felt happy in Spain and was very loyal to the team. He was also full of expectations for the blueprint that Mourinho painted for the team.
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