Alejo Veliz’s future at Tottenham Hotspur was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever, about that. Veliz was a young player essentially signed as a lottery ticket, and the thing about lottery tickets is that most of the time they don’t pan out. Veliz spent the last season and a half on loan at Sevilla and Espanyol and hasn’t exactly set the pitch on fire. At this point it’s probably best for everyone involved if he finds a new club.
Pursuant to that, Racing de Alma today posted a story on its official web page declaring that it has lodged an official bid of $5m (£3.6m) to bring Alejo back to Argentina. That’s obviously not a lot of money for a player for whom Spurs paid £13m to sign from Rosario Central in 2023, but the proposal also has a 30% sell-on clause, so Spurs will get a little bit back if and when he does end up moving to another club.
It’s unusual to see a football club actually post about making a bid for a player, especially when the deal hasn’t yet been agreed to. You certainly don’t see that in England, but maybe that’s a uniquely South American thing, or maybe this is one way a small Argentinian club can put a little pressure on one of the richest clubs in world football, I don’t know.
The Racing de Alma report also says that Rosario Central, Veliz’s old club, is also pushing to re-sign him, but they only want him on loan. For that reason, Racing thinks it’s likely they can get this over the line. That’d be fine with me. Veliz might not have worked out, but he’s still a young player and could end up having a perfectly fine career in South American football. We’ll see if this goes anywhere.