Sonny Perkins completes Leeds United medical with West Ham United owed compensation fee
Sonny Perkins has completed his medical at Leeds United with West Ham set to receive a compensation fee for the young striker, according to Fabrizio Romano.
West Ham confirmed on 1 July that they’ll be due compensation from any club that he joins as the 18-year-old rejected the chance to sign a new contract at the London Stadium before his exit.
Writing via his personal Twitter account on Sunday (17 July), Romano reported that Perkins has now signed a contract to join Leeds and an announcement will be made soon.
Good riddance
It remains to be seen what will come of this.
Perkins is a promising young striker who played three times for West Ham’s first team before deciding that he wanted to leave the London Stadium earlier this summer.
West Ham’s official statement on 1 July said that the club “strongly believe he was approached to sign for another club which led to him asking to be released from his scholarship at West Ham United”.
We cannot say for sure if it was Leeds who did that but Perkins’ representatives have a lot to answer for, as do the FA and Premier League to ensure things like this do not happen.
Perkins could have had a great future in East London but now he’s on his way to West Yorkshire where he’ll struggle for game-time behind Patrick Bamford, Joe Gelhardt, Sam Greenwood, Rodrigo and Daniel James, who can all play as strikers.
Jesse Marsch could yet still sign another striker as well, further limiting the number of opportunities that Perkins will have there.
If he stayed put here, he’d have definitely played more senior football, especially with the Irons in the Europa Conference League next season.
Anyway. Good riddance. We don’t want someone like that associated with the club and at least we’ll hopefully get a good whack of cash for our troubles.