Richarlison and Tottenham locked in contract dispute

Richarlison and Tottenham are at odds over the nine months left on his contract, with the Brazil Forward's camp examining whether there is a legal route to leave north London for nothing.

The dispute traces back to deadline day, when a move to Everton collapsed. Spurs stood to collect £35m and were ready to let the 29-year-old go, having made clear he no longer featured in their plans. Terms were all but in place. Richarlison, though, chose to stay.

"After everything I've gone through in recent years, I decided that NEVER AGAIN would they decide my future for me," he wrote in a statement. "If they reach an agreement between Spurs and Everton I will return to my heart's club."

He is now paying for that decision. Roberto De Zerbi left him out of Tottenham's Premier League squad, which means he cannot play in the competition until January at the earliest. That omission is understood to have hardened his position: his representatives have held talks with a legal team over whether there are grounds to argue, potentially through FIFA, that Tottenham are preventing him from practising his profession.

Tottenham do not accept he has grounds to walk away and are not entertaining a settlement. The club also hold a 12-month option to extend his contract to the end of next season, a card that complicates any push for an early exit. In his absence, De Zerbi has leaned on Dominic Solanke, Tottenham's centre-forward since September 2024 with 20 goals for the club, and the more recently arrived Sávio, signed in August 2026, who has scored once so far.

,. Talks between the two sides are continuing, and