Tottenham Hotspur midfield target Johnny Cardoso had a bad day yesterday, flashing a wide-open shot over the bar for Real Betis and losing 4-1 to Chelsea in the Europa Conference League final.
Now, there’s some good news — he’s a wanted man, and is likely going to be departing Betis for another club. As we reported earlier in the year, Tottenham Hotspur have a priority option to sign Johnny during a two week period at the start of the summer transfer window, which opens on June 1. But according to MARCA (aka the Spanish Daily Mail), Atletico Madrid are also keen on signing Johnny, and he has become a “priority target” for them next month.
It’s probably a good idea to revisit Johnny’s agreement with Spurs, first. Here’s the important paragraph from back when we first reported on the deal.
In short, McGrath confirmed the Cardoso option via comments from Betis president Ángel Haro. The deal is as follows: Spurs have a priority option that lasts for two weeks next summer whereby they will be able to purchase Cardoso for a fee of £21m. Should they decide NOT to sign him, other clubs will be available to make an offer for Cardoso when that two week window closes.
NOT reported in McGrath’s writeup is a reported sell-on clause in Cardoso’s contract whereby Tottenham would receive a percentage of money from Johnny’s sale if he DOESN’T move to Spurs. That was initially reported in the lead-up to the agreement, but it feels a touch weird — it’s undoubtedly a fantastic deal whereby Spurs would get future money from a Cardoso sale despite not actually owning the player, but I’m not seeing any confirmation post-window close of that clause existing. I’m now wondering if the reporting conflated Lo Celso’s sell-on with this hypothetical one for Cardoso. I’ll keep looking.
I haven’t seen anything since that would contradict what I wrote back in September. That two week window would presumably kick in June 1. But there is a complication — there are some reports of dubious providence floating around that Johnny isn’t exactly keen to come to Spurs and would much rather move to a club like Atletico, hence the interest from them. It’s also interesting that we really haven’t heard much about Johnny since arranging this priority option last summer.
It makes me wonder if we’re either kicking the can down the road a bit due to the ambiguity around Ange Postecoglou’s job status and the reshuffling of the deck chairs. Does Fabio Paratici want Johnny Cardoso or not? It’s not very clear. Nor is very clear whether he’s the kind of player Spurs want or need at them moment — he profiles much closer to a 23-year old Yves Bissouma, when really what Spurs need is someone who can pass.
What is clear is that if Spurs are going to exercise their option to purchase Johnny, it’ll happen in the next two weeks. And even if they don’t sign him it sounds like they might get a little cash out of the deal anyway. Guess we’re going to find out.