There is a particular kind of transfer story that tells you more about a club than any league table ever could, and Tottenham Hotspur are living through one right now with Richarlison. According to Fabrizio Romano, speaking on his Here We Go podcast, the relationship between the Brazilian forward and Spurs is “completely broken,” and the expectation across the game is that he leaves Tottenham for good in January.
Romano did not hedge. He said Tottenham now see Richarlison as “completely out” of their plans, and that the forward will “wear a new shirt in the next few months.” Barring a dramatic change of heart from either side, that puts a four year association that began with real promise on course to end not with a transfer fee of any substance, but with a club simply waiting out a contract it no longer wants to pay.
Richarlison joined from Everton in the summer of 2022 for a fee in the region of £60 million, and there was a time when that deal looked like shrewd business. He scored twice for Brazil at that winter’s World Cup, including the acrobatic finish against Serbia that briefly made him one of the most talked about forwards on the planet, and he arrived at Tottenham with a reputation for relentless pressing and genuine goal threat. Injuries disrupted his early years in north London, and he was never quite able to dislodge Son Heung-min or, more recently, the club’s newer attacking signings from the first choice forward line. What has happened since the summer feels different in kind rather than degree, though. This is not a player losing his place through form or fitness. It is a complete breakdown in the working relationship between a footballer and the club that pays him.
A Deadline Day That Defined the Saga
To understand how things got here, you need to go back to the closing days of the summer window. Richarlison had a route out that, on paper, suited everybody. Everton wanted him back, and Tottenham had their eye on Iliman Ndiaye as a potential makeweight in any deal that took Richarlison the other way. It should have been straightforward. It was not. Richarlison did not agree to the move, the Everton deal collapsed, and Ndiaye went to Manchester City before the window shut instead. Spurs turned to a loan for Chelsea’s Mykhaylo Mudryk as their alternative attacking option.
That was not the only route out that failed to materialise. Romano has reported that Richarlison agreed personal terms with Trabzonspor, only for Tottenham to reject the Turkish club’s proposals for a permanent transfer. Vasco da Gama, the Brazilian club regularly linked with a sentimental homecoming for the forward, made contact too, though Romano has been careful to say he is aware of nothing close to an actual agreement there. Three possible exits, three different reasons for collapse, and Richarlison still a Tottenham player when the window closed with results already starting to go badly wrong.
Frozen Out Since the Summer
What has followed is not simply a player sulking over a failed transfer. Roberto De Zerbi has been blunt about where things stand. The Tottenham head coach said in September that Richarlison “will not play even if he’s available,” insisting nothing had changed in his thinking and that the issue sits between the player and the club rather than anything tactical. De Zerbi also confirmed something that matters here: he said it was true that he had offered Richarlison a new contract at the start of the season, hoping to persuade him to stay and recommit to the project. That offer, according to Romano, was made in good faith. It simply was not enough to repair a relationship that had already soured.
The BBC reported in September that the dispute has since escalated into something more formal, centred on the remaining nine months of Richarlison’s deal. He is understood to want Tottenham to release him for nothing rather than run his contract down to its final months as an unused squad player. Tottenham, for their part, have so far resisted that idea, reluctant to simply hand back the rights to a player for whom they paid Everton in the region of £60 million back in 2022. Talks between the two parties continue, but little suggests either side has shifted far from its original position.
Why January Is the Last Chance
The practical reality is that January now carries far more weight than a normal mid season window usually does for a club like Tottenham. Richarlison’s contract runs out at the end of this season, meaning the winter window is Spurs’ only remaining opportunity to recover any value at all for a 29 year old forward who has not featured since the summer. Wait until the summer and he simply leaves for nothing, his registration expiring with Tottenham left to show for it only the wages they will have paid a player who never kicked a ball for them across an entire campaign.
It is a situation that reflects badly on everyone involved, if we are honest about it. The breakdown in trust appears total now, and no amount of fresh interest from Dubai, Turkey or Brazil has yet produced the clean exit that would suit both parties. Tottenham, meanwhile, have far bigger problems to solve. They sit bottom of the Premier League table with two points from their first five games, a club that spent heavily over the summer, strengthening a squad that cost more than £300 million in total, and has precious little to show for it on the pitch. De Zerbi is the same manager credited with dragging Spurs away from relegation trouble last season, and the club’s hierarchy have so far resisted calls to remove him, backing his belief that such a heavily rebuilt squad simply needs time to settle. A messy, drawn out saga with a player who no longer features in the matchday squad is the last distraction he needs while he tries to turn results around.
For now, Richarlison trains away from first team involvement and waits, much like Tottenham, for January to arrive. When it does, do not expect a bidding war or a dramatic late twist. Expect a club and a player simply agreeing, at last, to go their separate ways.
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