Leeds United are about to enter murky territory if these latest claims from Forbes journalist Manuel Veth ring true.
He believes that the Yorkshire giants are trying to get out of their deal to sign loan flop Jean-Kevin Augustin this summer, but parent club RB Leipzig maintain that the deal is water-tight, which may come as bad news to Victor Orta and co.
Will JKA be signed this summer?
Yes!
No!
Veth tweeted on Wednesday afternoon:
#RBLeipzig have made it clear. In case of Leeds’ promotion they will have to buy Jean-Kevin Augustin for €21m. #LUFC are currently trying to get out of the contract citing that the season ends after June 30. Leipzig maintain, the contract is water tight. Bring in the lawyers.
— Manuel Veth (@ManuelVeth) July 1, 2020
The Whites agreed to an obligation to buy on the 23-year-old should they gain promotion to the Premier League this season. A move that’ll cost an eye-watering €21m (£18m).
Augustin has made just three substitute appearances, playing a total of 48 minutes since January and has now been sent back to the Bundesliga outfit with his loan not being renewed for the Championship’s late end to the season.
It’s rather unlikely that Leeds will want to fork out nearly £20m on a player they’ve barely seen and one that has made next to no impact on their promotion quest, so understandably the club is trying to wriggle out of it.
What is concerning, though, is the fact that Leipzig will put up a fight to stop them from manoeuvring out of the deal, meaning we will surely have a worrying saga on our hands going into next season.
This is backed up by the fact that the journalist revealing this information hints of lawyers becoming involved in due course.
It could get very messy for United’s hierarchy very soon.