Recently, Sassuolo Club (Italy) confirmed spending about 9.3 million USD (equivalent to 244 billion VND) and 580,000 USD in additional fees to recruit center back Jay Idzes from Venezia.
This is the deal with the highest transfer fee ever recorded for an Indonesian player in particular and Southeast Asia in general.
Previously, this record belonged to midfielder Chanathip Songkrasin (Thailand) when he left Consadole Sapporo for Kawasaki Frontale in J-League 1 (Japan) in 2021 for 3.9 million USD.
Jay Idzes was born in 2000 in the Netherlands, has an Indonesian grandmother, so he is eligible to wear the Indonesian national team jersey without having to meet the residence period. He debuted for the Indonesian team in the 1-0 victory over Vietnam on March 21, 2024 in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.
Idzes grew up in Eindhoven, made 66 appearances and scored 2 goals in Serie A for Venezia. In the 2024-2025 season, after Venezia were relegated, he was offered a deal by many clubs such as Udinese, Torino and Genoa before deciding to join Sassuolo.
At Sassuolo, the 25-year-old centre-back signed a contract until June 2029.
Compared to the general level in the region, million-dollar deals like Idzes are very rare. In Vietnam, most players transferred freely and had their contracts expired. The most notable case was in 2019, goalkeeper Dang Van Lam was bought by Muangthong United (Thailand) from Hai Phong for 500,000 USD.
Recently, Ninh Binh FC is said to spend about tens of billions of dong to recruit overseas Vietnamese players from Slavia Sofia (Bulgaria).
