Diego Costa will not have a lot of suitors this summer, after Chelsea manager, Antonio Conte sent him a text message, asking him to look for a new club.
Costa had previously insisted that he will either stay at Stamford Bridge or return to his former club, Atletico Madrid.
However, a return will be complicated by the La Liga club’s transfer ban.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) refused to uphold Atletico’s appeal against a ban on registering new players handed down by FIFA, which means they will be unable to field any new signings until January next year.
“It would be nice to go back to Atletico but I have to think everything over,” Costa said after Wednesday’s friendly against Colombia.
“There’s a World Cup [in 2018] and I need to play. Being four or five months without playing is tough, but people know that I love my Atletico team-mates a lot, I love living in Madrid.”
Interest in the player from China has dropped too, especially as the Chinese Football Association (CFA) has introduced its strongest policy to date, to curb the huge transfer fees clubs pay for foreign playes.
Chinese Super League side Tianjin Quanjin, are reportedly ready to offer a fee in excess of £60million for Chelsea’s Costa, but the CFA is determined to put an end to the inflated fees and focus on youth.
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