The Red Star has the clock activated. His formal offer to sign Facu Campazzo, rejected in the NBA last week, has an expiration of nine days and Real Madrid, which maintained the power to match any proposal in Europe by the Argentine, must respond.
Those who do not give up are the Serbs. In the run-up to the first match between two teams from the country in the Euroleague, today at 8:30 p.m. against Partizan, he asked himself by Campazzo. Vildoza, the compatriot who has followed the same path as Facu (from the United States to the Red Star this year), avoided making a complete statement on the matter: “He’s my friend, of course, and I’ve read about that rumor, but I have no idea. I’m trying not to get into that before this game. I would be very happy for Facu if he comes, to have another Argentine in the team, but I don’t know anything.”. Vildoza and Campazzo share a representation agency. Dusko Ivanovic was also asked about this point and the veteran coach, pulling his back, answered the following with a revealing smile on his face: “I know Campazzo well. Do you really want to come to Red Star?”.
The Red Star has answered but in private. Once Facu’s stage in the NBA seems over, the offer from the Belgrade club has reached Real Madrid through the official channel. Publicly, the rojiblanco team has not mentioned his offensive in the market either.
Why Red Star?
This sudden purchasing power of the Red Star has its one. This offer to Campazzo is double-edged and exceeds the net 1.6 million that Real Madrid seemed willing to pay (even with the squad closed). Higher the first year, 1.8, and even more the second, 2.5, according to the information advanced by sporting Y EuroHoops, with the option for the player to leave in the summer of 2023 for the team he wants. The first thing to note about this is that, due to the contribution as a resident that the tax rises so much from the second year and not from the first, this would help two aspects: that the player could sign for Madrid in the summer with less debt burden and flexibility to pay it off or, on the contrary, move away from Real and choose continuity or another team as the people of Madrid have lost any option to match offers for him (outside Spain). Be that as it may, there are those who can’t quite explain how Red Star has been able to get into this fight with such force. To understand why, you have to do a bit of hindsight. In 2019, Minister Sinisa Mali, in charge of finances in Serbia, assured that the two main basketball clubs in the country were going to be supported in the same way in economic matters, but everything fell apart in 2021. Partizan managed to get Zeljko Obradovic back of his sabbatical year to train the team, but that decision was supported by an important investment (Kurucs, LeDay, Punter…) in which the Government got involved and helped them return to the Euroleague through subsidiary competition (EuroCup). That is why now the Red Star has asked for his turn. Aleksandar Vucic, the current Serbian president, is a basketball lover -his dream is to train young children and during the coronavirus pandemic he was studying for it- and he has interceded to support the other important club in Belgrade, first with Vildoza and now with Campazzo. Right now Estrella is prohibited from registering new players in the Euroleague, a period that extends until February 9, and there the club has been able to filter to the local media that this problem will be resolved without further ado and the incorporation of Campazzo would not be in danger for that reason.