Guillem Balagué has confirmed that Rafa Benitez has received lucrative offers from Saudi Arabi and China – but he believes his ‘big target’ is to remain in the Premier League should he leave Newcastle.
The Spanish journalist insists that his ‘priority’ is to remain on Tyneside, but only if he ‘gets enough support’ from the club’s hierarchy, with him clearly not willing to spend each season battling relegation – and rightly so.
Big money offers from China have been regularly reported over the past year – with Balague claiming some are willing to pay him €10m per-year – however this is not the next move of a man who still has big aspirations in one of Europe’s top leagues.
Here’s what Balague has had to say when speaking about his fellow Spaniard’s future:
“The priority is to stay at Newcastle.
“The kind of offers that he got, which are like €10million net a year, come from Saudi Arabia and from China which I don’t think are the places he should go next.
“The battle is to stay at Newcastle, if he gets enough support.
“If he doesn’t stay at Newcastle I think the Premier League will be the competition he would like to stay in. I think that will be the target.
“Another matter is which club will actually go for him. I don’t believe there’s been offers yet in that department. But that’s where it all stands – he wants to stay in the Premier League.
“The Premier League is his big target.”
His family are also settled in the Wirral (North-West England), so is another big factor when it comes to him remaining in England.
This makes our inability to offer him the right terms even more infuriating. We have a world class manager with big ambitious keen to stay at our club, yet it seems he’s still waiting on a response from Mike Ashley and co.
