Alaska deadline nears on P42-M Duremdes deal

Although Kenneth Duremdes is miles away from home, the player’s cash registry will ring to the amount of P42 million in a day or two with his old team Alaska Milk having to decide whether to match or not a mega-buck contract proposal offered by Mobiline to the top Alaska cager.

The whole Alaska team is also out of town. The Aces are supposedly on a holiday trip in Las Vegas but the team management found itself deep in work in dealing with Duremdes, who’s in Houston, following the offer from the Piltel franchise at the expiration of his old pact Monday.

At the request of the Alaska management itself, Mobiline presented the contract proposal first to the Uytengsu ballclub before making it a formal "offer sheet." Under the agreement, the Piltel franchise will no longer exercise the offer sheet once Alaska officials say they’re matching the offer which will finally make Duremdes one of the highest-paid players in the league.

Keen on strengthening their core group, Mobiline officials have also suggested a trade deal to acquire the services of Duremdes.

Alaska team manager Joaqui Trillo, in a phone conversation with Duremdes’ agent-adviser Danny Espiritu, said they’ll announce their decision today.

Actually, Alaska has also a standing offer of P42 million in seven years for Duremdes, but Mobiline sweetened the pot by dangling lucrative bonus packages.

Mobiline offered an accelerated won-game bonus that will have Duremdes receiving P38,000 per won game just in the elimination round in year 2007. Duremdes is also assured of a practice allowance of P1,000 this year – something which he didn’t get from Alaska.

Trillo has said they will do everything to keep Duremdes in their fold. The Alaska team manager even said they traded Johnny Abarrientos and Poch Juinio to Pop Cola late last year to make room in their salary cap in anticipation of big offers for Duremdes.

Meanwhile, Pop Cola team manager Elmer Yanga said they immediately reached an agreement with Rudy Hatfield after they acquired his services and that of Pido Jarencio in a trade deal with Tanduay Sunday.

"He (Hatfield) is in the US. But, through his manager, we agreed that we would pay him no less than P300,000 a month," said Yanga of the player they got in exchange for Noli Locsin.

Tanduay officials reportedly said they let go of Hatfield because the player is asking for no less than P500,000 a month. Observers, however, thought Tanduay released the Fil-Am player for fear of another problem with his citizenship papers.