River Plate are sniffing around Valentín Gómez, the 22-year-old Argentine centre-back who only joined Real Betis earlier and is contracted there until 2030. The early word is that River have made contact and that Gómez acknowledged the approach — but the player's stated intention is to stay where he is, having quickly become a key figure for Betis. A fee somewhere between £12.5m and £17.7m has been floated, comfortably above his roughly £10m market value. For now this is interest, not a negotiation: nobody is reporting an offer on the table, only that River are hunting a left-footed central defender and have Gómez on the list. The sourcing here is thin. So far this rests on a single mid-tier link, German Garcia Grova, whose reliability sits low. There is no corroboration from a benchmark reporter and no second voice confirming any of it, which means the whole story leans on one account. The engine's 9% reading marks this as a genuine longshot. To climb, several things would need to flip: River turning contact into a concrete bid near that fee, Betis showing any willingness to sell a long-contracted asset, and crucially Gómez changing his mind, since his preference is to stay and keep playing as a Betis regular. Those obstacles, plus the flimsy sourcing, are exactly why the number is so low. For context, Gómez cost Betis just £5m from Vélez Sarsfield in 2025, while River's recent business — Krasnodar to River Plate for £11m in 2025 and CA Talleres for £9m in 2024 — sits below the figures discussed here. Watch for River lodging an actual bid, a stronger reporter picking this up, or any softening in the player's stance.