Roman Abramovich warned "not to faint" over N'Golo Kante's agents' huge transfer fees
The latest Football Leaks documents reveal the astronomical transfer fees pocketed by N'Golo Kante's agents from his move from Leicester City to Chelsea.
In the summer of 2016, Chelsea won the battle against PSG and Real Madrid to sign N’Golo Kante from Leicester City for 38 million euros.
But if any club moves to sign him in the future, it would be advisable that they first take his agents’ fees into account, something Chelsea mistakenly overlooked two years ago.
According to the latest revelations by Football leaks, the player’s agents, Gregory Dakad and Abdelkarim Douis, pocketed 12 million euros between them from the transfer deal between Leicester and Chelsea – with the former earning 7 million euros and latter, 5 million euros.
The agents’ commissions – the equivalent of a third of the player’s transfer fee – came as a surprise to Chelsea. And in an email obtained by Football Leaks, club director, María Granovskaia, told owner Roman Abramovich “not to faint” when she broke the news to him about Dakad and Douis’ astronomical fees.
But despite this, Kante’s overall cost, in hindsight, may now seem like a bargain to Chelsea’s board, considering the French international has established himself as one of best defensive midfielders in the world, with a current market value of 80 million euros, according to transfermarkt.com.
Kante refuses offshore payments from Chelsea
This is the second revelation surrounding N’Golo Kante brought to light this week. According to documents acquired by Football Leaks, the French player refused to accept offshore payments from Chelsea designed to help him avoid paying income tax.
Reportedly, Kante had initially agreed to an offshore account being set up in his name, to which a portion of his salary related to image rights would be paid. But later on the player refused to accept payments to the offshore account, demanding he wanted “a normal salary”.
"N'Golo is inflexible, he simply wants a normal salary. After reading numerous press articles on image rights and tax investigations against players and clubs, N'Golo is increasingly concerned that the set-up proposed to him could be questioned by the tax authorities. N'Golo decided that he did not want to take any risks,” read the Football Leaks-obtained email from his tax advisor to Chelsea.