West Ham United inform Director of Football candidates Declan Rice exit will happen
West Ham United have told potential director of football candidates that Declan Rice will leave the club this summer, according to The Guardian (2 June).
The skipper has been linked with a transfer away with Arsenal and Bayern Munich reportedly willing to pay around £90m for the 24-year-old, although West Ham value him at £120m.
But while he has two years remaining on his deal and nobody has matched his value with a bid yet, Jacob Steinberg is reported that the club have informed candidates for the new director of football role they’re hiring for that he will leave.
“West Ham are looking to bring in a director of football and potential candidates have been informed Declan Rice will be sold this summer,” they wrote (2 June).
Expected
The likelihood is that Rice will leave this summer because his contract situation makes our negotiation stance a little bit weaker, and he is getting louder about playing Champions League football.
But until bids are made and accepted, then he will be a West Ham player next season and that’s that.
The club are obviously preparing for the most likely scenario which is that they come to an agreement with a club about a deal that sees him leave and leaves everyone happy, but there’s no guarantees of that.
If they told the new director of football anything different then they’d be lying, so it would be a positive surprise for everyone if he ended up sticking around.
At this stage though this is probably accurate and the club are just letting potential new members of staff know that the funds they’ll be working with will be needed to replace the team’s best player.