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41 An Olive Branch
"I'm very sorry, but if those are your demands, then there is no point in negotiating," Filipe said with conviction, seemingly ready to throw the deal under the bus and move on.
Rico was so stunned at his decisiveness that he couldn't speak for a few seconds and only kept opening and shutting his mouth like a goldfish.
It was at this moment he realized, he had fu**ed up.
He had been so carried away with raising Jason's worth and negotiating a higher salary to get as much agent fees as possible while impressing Jason with his negotiating skills that he had not paid attention to the call of reason and he was now on the verge of losing it all.
"10000," Sergio Conceicao who had been silent all while Filipe was speaking suddenly spoke up,
"I'll go out on a limb and offer 10000 euros per week as a salary because I believe in his talent and hope he'd do a lot for the club,"
"Of course, other clauses in the contract draft will have to be adjusted accordingly and a new contract draft will be sent to you soon," Sergio said coolly, offering an olive branch to Rico who was already on the verge of sinking the deal, and Jason who didn't even know what was going on.
"... I-I'll speak with my client and get back to you," Rico managed to say, doing his best to keep his last shred of pride as an agent intact as he stood up from the table, said his goodbyes and left the room.
"Why did you offer that much money?" Filipe asked Sergio immediately the door was closed behind Rico.
"...It was probably for the best, and I think he is worth that much," Sergio said after a little while,
"Since we didn't pay a transfer fee for him, let's just think of this as signing a good talent at a cheap price as I don't think we can acquire a talent of his level with an amount this low," he further explained his reasoning. Filipe kept quiet after hearing his reasoning as he couldn't argue with what Sergio said. He had gathered information on Jason when he had been informed that he would be in charge of the negotiations concerning him, so he knew that what Sergio said made sense.
"I don't want to be biased, but I think that guy is doing this without the knowledge of the kid," Rafael finally spoke after being silent for so long.
"What do you mean?" Filipe asked, a bit confused.
"Well, I informed the kid about the club's decision to add him to their rooster just the day before yesterday and told him to get an agent,"
"This was probably the best he could do between the time I spoke to him and the time the agent contacted us and collected the contract's draft," Rafael began creating a scenario with his words.
"Wait, you mean the kid just hired that guy?" Sergio asked stunned.
"Probably, he didn't have an agent before this," Rafael answered.
"That doesn't mean it couldn't be what the kid wants," Filipe questioned, not so willing to believe that Rico quoted such a high amount without the permission of his client though he had intoned at that during the negotiation.
"Maybe, but we just sent the contract draft to him this morning so I'm not sure if he would have had time to contact the kid while reading the contract draft before he arrived here," Rafael remained adamant about defending Jason.
"That still doesn't mean much. Most young players these days are all about the money instead of passion," Filipe also remained adamant about blaming Jason.
"Hey, I'm the one that scouted this kid and I can tell you that while he isn't forward with his emotions a lot, he has as much passion as you want," Rafael didn't give up though.
"Hmph, how can you tell?" Filipe scoffed
"I can feel it…" Rafael responded in a confident tone
"Plus, the kid seems pretty well off and drives a car of over a hundred thousand dollars that he said he bought himself, so I don't think he would have such an overreaching demand for money," Rafael said with a little laugh.
"How would you know that he bought it himself?" Filipe asked dubiously.
"That's what he said and his aunt didn't say otherwise, so I think it's the truth," Rafael replied.
"His aunt? What did his parents say?" Sergio asked, a bit interested in the sudden mention of an aunt.
"...He's an orphan," Rafael said with a sigh.
"Oh," Sergio and Filipe said in unison.
"Well anyway, there isn't much we can do now but wait for news," Sergio said with a sigh as he stood up.
As the head manager of the club, he had work to do and did not have enough time to sit around talking with even his colleagues unless it was about something pertaining to the club.
Nothing they discussed now would influence the deal anyway and all they could do was wait for a response on Jason's side.
***Meanwhile, on Jason's side***
Jason counted again the number of zeros behind his weekly salary and it took all of his effort to avoid spitting the drink in his mouth at Rico's face, but that did not stop him from cursing internally. 'What did this motherfucker do?' he thought alarmedly.
He had not waited for news and had done some online research and knew that the average weekly salary of the FC Porto senior team was around 24000 euros.
The implication behind this was that a youth player being promoted to the senior team would probably be offered a salary between 1 - 5 thousand euros weekly depending on their talent.
He would probably be offered about 4 to 5 thousand with his situation, so why the hell was he seeing 10000 euros?
One had to know that the the amount he was seeing was probably the amount he was seeing after negotiation had taken place, so how much had this bastard requested in the first place?
Jason could not help rubbing his brows in exasperation as he remembered that he had told this idiot that he wouldn't mind conceding a bit when it came to the wages he was offered, but then this motherfu**er had gone ahead and done this.
This guy was trying to fuck up his relationship with the club management before he even joined the club,
… and all because of what?
Jason couldn't understand Rico's reasoning, but what he knew was that, what had happened, had happened and he couldn't change it so he could only move on.
With that in mind, he asked the most important situation in this situation, "Since we've come to an agreement with the club, when can we meet up to sign the contract?"
He was itching to sign the contract and get rid of this disaster of an agent as soon as possible before he messed things up further.