Isn't it against the rules to negotiate contracts before having a fee agreed with the club?
The generally held understanding is that you can't talk to a player or their representatives without permission from the player's club
the truth is the FIFA rule is a lot more open than this. All it says is that a club must inform the parent club that they will be negotiating with the player. No contract can be
concluded without permission agreement from the parent club, except when there's fewer than 6 months remaining on the player's contract.
This is only the full rule for international transfers though. Within leagues, different FAs often set out different, more specific, rules about what is or isn't allowed. The Premier League, for example, explicitly states that consent is required from the player's club for negotiations to be allowed, which is where the tapping up stuff actually comes into play.
In this case though, it's irrelevant, as Ajax have supposedly given Raiola and De Ligt free reign to talk with any club they like, on the understanding that there is a minimum full 75m fee coming Ajax' way.
I feel like, from the reports, Raiola has now gone against the spirit of that agreement though, by clearly inflating his and De Ligt's demands in the negotiations and, I imagine, hinting/agreeing with, in this case, his buddy-buddy club Juve to use this as leverage to force Ajax' hand and redeem that expense from the fee they pay us. hardly surprising that he would do that though. I think Ajax' "gentlemanly" approach may have been a bit naive and I hope they sort of slam the door shut on that lenience now if there is a whiff of Raiola playing backhanded games at their expense. Need to be firm and clear now with both Juve and De Ligt.