Just before 1pm on Thursday afternoon, Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish delivered a major twist in this summer’s transfer window via his social media accounts.
“I’m delighted to announce Michael Olise has committed his future to Crystal Palace and this afternoon signed a new four-year deal with the club,” he wrote, followed by an eagle emoji, red and blue circle emojis and rounded off with another eagle emoji and one of a finger pressed to lips.
Despite Chelsea’s interest and the belief they had triggered a release clause in Olise’s contract that would have left Palace with a guaranteed sum of £35million ($45m), the 21-year-old decided to stay put. There had been interest earlier in the window from Manchester City but no formal offer was made.
The new deal had seemingly come from nowhere. Palace had previously attempted, unsuccessfully, to remove or raise the intricate release clause when seeking to renegotiate his contract last year.
In a summer where everything, it seemed, had been going Chelsea’s way, Palace were able to halt the juggernaut in its tracks and change its course.
Chelsea had signed nine players this summer, spending lavishly, when their attentions turned to Olise — a unique talent with lofty ambitions and significant ability — who would have taken that number into double figures.
But this was one deal they didn’t have their own way.
Chelsea tried to activate the release clause last Sunday, in advance of a stated deadline of 14 days before the market closes on September 1. They would subsequently have until the end of the window to conclude a deal. Though Chelsea believed they had triggered it, Palace thought otherwise.
Chelsea were entitled to be aware of the clause but did not know about certain conditions governing its activation.
The clause was not one that could be triggered directly by another club. Instead, Olise’s contract stipulated it was the player’s responsibility to inform Parish of the interest and his intention to activate the clause.
In turn, Palace would need to tell Olise the total amount required — including additional payments — and he would relay that to Chelsea accordingly. In this case, the figure came to significantly more than £35million but this was the minimum net fee that Palace were guaranteed to receive.
Chelsea would then need to notify Palace of their readiness to pay up on behalf of Olise and the transaction could proceed. It is unknown whether this clause exists in Olise’s new contract.
Chelsea went straight to Palace when that should have been done by Olise. There was no reply from Palace because, as far as they were concerned, the process had not been followed as stipulated in Olise’s contract.
In recent days, Palace were optimistic he was going to commit his future to them. There were conversations with manager Roy Hodgson and the club’s hierarchy. Olise let Palace know on Wednesday evening of his decision before signing the following afternoon.
They had not sought to stand in his way should an opportunity arise that was too good to refuse. They looked, though, to convince him that his immediate future would be best served in south London.
“I suggested, of course, that being at Crystal Palace and playing here would be the best option, but I also made it clear to him I wouldn’t put him under unnecessary pressure,” said Hodgson.
“He was under pressure from all sides. I can only tell you that from my side, it was, ‘I’m always here if you want to speak to me to discuss it further’.
Olise, born in Hammersmith to a French-Algerian mother and Nigerian father and capped seven times by France Under-21s — the country whose senior team he wishes to represent — is highly ambitious. He believes he can reach the very top, domestically and internationally.
There was a temptation to join Chelsea, who it is believed were seeking to offer him an eight-year contract. He had been attached to their academy until the under-14 level and his 18-year-old brother Richard still plays there.
Joe Shields, who worked with Olise at City and was appointed Chelsea’s co-director of recruitment and talent in October, has been credited with spotting the forward’s talent at an early age.
But when it came down to it he decided to sign a new contract at Palace worth in the region of £80,000 a week.
He had not received an opportunity that was impossible to refuse. Olise’s ambition is to win the Champions League and play at as high a level as possible. As it turned out, it appears he believes the best route to that is remaining at Palace and developing further. After all, it is there that he has been nurtured into a burgeoning talent, some of the rough edges smoothed out and the reason he was in this position in the first instance.
There had been healthy dialogue between the two clubs’ U.S. owners — Josh Harris, David Blitzer and John Textor at Palace — and Parish during the process — which at Chelsea had been handled primarily by co-sporting director Paul Winstanley. Reports had surfaced that Palace were unhappy with how the situation unfolded, but it is understood no complaint was lodged.
There is no surprise that clubs had been circling around Olise. He is one of the Premier League’s most exciting wingers, playing with a very particular pizzazz. His exuberance on the ball and his extreme confidence in his own ability make him an exceptional talent.
A post by Palace’s social media team on Thursday evening of a particularly outstanding assist for Eberechi Eze in a 2-0 win over Bournemouth demonstrated as much, being mischievously accompanied with a soundtrack of The Fratellis’ 2006 song Chelsea Dagger.
The 21-year-old’s development has been rapid. From Reading in the Championship to Palace under Patrick Vieira and latterly Hodgson in the Premier League, he has consistently improved. There were suitors in 2021 but only Palace triggered his £8million release clause.
Across all competitions, he accumulated a total of 1,503 minutes, with eight assists (five in the league) and four goals (two in the league) from 12 starts out of 31 appearances in his debut campaign.
Last season, that became 34 starts in 40 appearances in all competitions, culminating in just shy of double the amount of time on the pitch (3,000 minutes). A superb free kick late on in a 1-1 draw at home to Manchester United in January earned him Palace’s goal of the season award and the league’s goal of the month award, while he was also named player of the year by his team-mates.
He concluded the campaign with 11 assists, the joint-fourth highest total in the division, and in a 5-1 win over Leeds United in April, he became the youngest Premier League player to claim three assists from open play in one match.
After Marc Guehi equalised for Palace that win over Leeds, Olise, in the middle of the celebrations, put a finger to his lips in front of the Elland Road Kop and told them, in no uncertain terms, to shut up.
He had nonchalantly tossed aside bottles that had rained down on him in the FA Cup third-round tie away to Millwall in January 2022 after he scored against Palace’s rivals in the hostile environment of that London derby at The Den.
Not much tends to faze him on or off the pitch. Although introverted with an elusiveness that makes his personality difficult to capture, and easy to misunderstand or misinterpret, he is well-liked and respected.
After the contract announcement, Hodgson hinted that part of his decision to return to manage Palace after Vieira’s sacking in March was predicated on retaining the club’s best talent. Olise certainly falls into that category. A “red letter day”, Hodgson called it.
“As a coach, it is perfect because I really enjoyed the 10 games last year,” he said. “I thought the squad was looking really very interesting, so when the chairman asked me to come back and do another year I had that in mind.
“To lose a player like Wilfried Zaha (who left for Galatasaray after his contract expired) and then Olise, that would have changed, to some extent, my perception of it all.”
Despite the saga, and the underlying tensions as a result of Palace potentially losing one of their most important players, the two clubs are understood to want to move on amicably.
There was separation in the process over negotiations for versatile Chelsea left-back Lewis Hall to move to Palace, with the deal unaffected by the Olise situation.
For their part, Chelsea accepted that their defeat in their pursuit of Olise, who is sidelined with a torn hamstring sustained in the Under-21 European Championship this summer, is how it goes sometimes. Once they became aware he wanted to stay, they respected his wishes to ensure the long-term health of a relationship with Palace.
For Palace, any concerns have blown away with this new deal, which leaves his future under their control far more than before.
Olise will continue to light up the Premier League in red and blue. Though his immediate future may be settled, there is no doubt that, should he continue his upwards trajectory, then this will have only been the start of things to come for Palace. He will, inevitably, attract even more attention, and that may present its own challenges.
For now, though, Palace will simply be relieved to have successfully fought off Chelsea’s advances.
(Top photo: Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)