Mason Mount is on the verge of leaving Chelsea, and it’s all down to a contract issue.
The reason we’re selling him is because he’s coming into the last year of his current deal, and we can’t agree a new one with him. That means he has to be sold now to ensure we get a good transfer fee.
It’s infuriating for the fans – why are we selling off our fan favourite academy stars rather than giving them the money they deserve?
The ESPN report on matters makes it very clear why Mount isn’t happy. It claims that Reece James’ new deal put him on a £250,000 per week, but the midfielder wasn’t offered a “comparable salary.”
Some people have tried to explain that away. You might argue that James is in the top 5 players in the world in his position (perhaps the top 3), while Mount isn’t.
The counter argument to that is easy – since they broke into the team at same time, Mount has played 195 games and James just 147.
Mount has been reliably fit consistently, while James’ issues have gone from irritating to really worrying. So the idea that they would receive similar wages is not outrageous.
There may be more to it than that – we’ve heard there are issues with the midfielder’s image rights – but we can see this being the crux of the issue.