It's interesting to speculate, but surely the easiest thing for him to do is go and get paid a shed load in China. Big payday for him and his agent. He can always come back when we've all forgotten what an unprofessional brat he is.
The other scenarios just seem like too much trouble. The contract situation will come under a different legal jurisdiction once he's left and signed for a foreign club, so we're a bit in the dark here. But as I see it, there are two problems:
1. It assumes that there is club somewhere, let's say in Europe, which is happy to have him parked there for a week or a month or whatever for minimal return (or if, as Stokelad suggests, he can't move clubs more than once in a window, for three months. This means the initial buying club will need to pay him and probably play him for three months). Now if you are, say, a Ligue 2 side skimping for every penny, are you really going to forego the potential return on a notional £20,000,000 asset to do a favour for a big boy for peanuts?
2. If the club he first goes to makes agreement to sell him on for a notional amount to a EPL club, would that be a binding contract since it is made before they actually own his playing contract? Would it be enforceable if the first club decided to try to cash in? If players' contracts all have to be lodged with the club's FA, would they sanction the kind of agreement being talked about.
I love these what if threads
Mike