Leeds United in line to earn six-figure windfall as Rafa Mujica transfer news emerges
Leeds United look set to receive almost £500,000 in transfer sell-on fees after their former striker Rafa Mujica gets set to complete a move from Portugal to Qatar.
Mujica only made a handful of pre-season friendly appearances for Leeds after being signed in 2019, but he could earn the club roughly £429,500 almost three years after leaving Elland Road.
The forward has since found his feet in Portugal with Arouca, scoring 38 goals in all competitions across two seasons, and as reported by Gran Canarian publication Tinta Marilla, he will now move to Qatari side Al-Sadd for £8.59million.
The rules of his sale state that clubs whom Mujica trained for between the ages of 12 to 21 are in line to receive five per cent of “solidarity rights”, meaning his big-money move to the Middle East will therefore see Leeds net just short of £450,000, likewise Las Palmas and Barcelona.
Should Leeds have kept Rafa Mujica?
Leeds’ transfer window in the summer of 2021 is now viewed as the line in the sand between the team’s upward trajectory under Marcelo Bielsa coming to a halt and setting the seeds for relegation two years later.
Mujica was one of several fringe players to depart that July – the only out-and-out striker to do so – which raises the question that had Leeds kept him, would Bielsa have been better able to accommodate for Patrick Bamford’s subsequent injury issues?
Looking at Mujica’s scoring record for Arouca suggests that keeping him at Elland Road could have been a wise decision, but he only joined the Portuguese side a year later in 2022, after finding the net just once in 16 Segunda Division appearances for Las Palmas.
Bielsa never saw fit to give Mujica a single first-team minute in the white shirt, sending him out on loan four times within just two seasons, and so had he remained in West Yorkshire for a further 12 months, there’s little chance that the Argentine would have called on the now 25-year-old’s services regardless of how tough the 2021-22 season turned out to be.
At least there will be more financial rewards to come for his sale very soon.
In other Leeds United news, a teenage sensation is now set to snub Manchester United in order to move to Elland Road.
For more Leeds news, follow us on Facebook or join our brand new WhatsApp Channel for instant updates to be sent straight to your phone.