ANNAPOLIS.- Barcelona and RB Leipzig reached an agreement in principle on Tuesday for the transfer of Dani Olmo, an authorized source from the club told ESPN in Annapolis, pending final details of the contract between the two entities and the player passing a medical examination.
Olmo, who will undergo the medical on Thursday, has already travelled to Barcelona with his agent and if everything goes as expected he should join the Barça squad’s training sessions on Friday.
Deco met with representatives of the German club on Tuesday morning to bring the two sides closer together and try to close a deal that, in fixed and variable terms, will be worth around 60 million euros.
The deal is not yet finalised but the source told ESPN that Deco said at the meeting that Barcelona is willing to meet the amount requested by Leipzig to complete what would be their first signing of the summer.
ESPN reported last week that Olmo had become a priority for the Catalan club because it saw the signing of Williams becoming increasingly difficult.
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In the last few hours, both pieces of news have been confirmed, with Deco travelling to Germany to negotiate in person the signing of the RB Leipzig player and Williams suggesting that he will not leave Bilbao this season.“Everything is going well this summer, looking forward to getting started. Full steam ahead,” said Williams on his return to training, before adding: “Go Athletic fans! I’m back, really looking forward to this season. Let’s go Athletic!”
The pessimism for Williams coincides with the optimism for Olmo and even a source close to the negotiations has already dared to suggest to ESPN that the operation is underway. Barça has had the player’s OK for days and a source admits to ESPN that during the meeting on Tuesday the different parties brought their positions closer together in words to reach an agreement that…
Barça had already made two previous offers that Leipzig had considered too low and some media outlets claim that the deal will finally be closed at 55 million euros fixed plus another 7 in variables.
Leipzig’s sporting director Marcel Schäfer also publicly admitted on Tuesday that they are open to negotiations on his transfer. “We are ready to talk, but Dani has a certain value. That’s why we are comfortable now. Dani is an exceptional player,” said Schäfer.
A source close to the player acknowledged in the last few hours that the possibility of Olmo returning to Barcelona was becoming more feasible every day, but at the same time warned that other clubs such as Bayern Munich were also keeping an eye on the operation.
Barça, with Deco already in Germany, have gone all out to win the race, even though the club has warned that they are close to reaching the 1:1 rule that would allow them to invest as much money in signings as they earn from their sales.
The Catalan club was hoping to reach that point with the sale of Barça Vision, which was pending with the German fund Libero. The club admits that in the next few hours it will announce an agreement with a sponsor who will take charge of the 40 million that the fund left to pay.
In this way, Barça feels that the signing of Dani Olmo is much closer, increasing its initial proposal.
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“We’re not talking about figures, that’s confidential,” said a club source in Annapolis, not confirming, but not denying either, that Barça could reach that fixed payment of 55 million euros plus a variable 7 million to close the deal, regardless of what might happen with Nico Williams, whose appearance on social media surprised everyone.
“We didn’t expect it”, “It was a surprise” and “We don’t know what he’s playing” were some of the reactions after seeing the Athletic video and even though the official message is that the market is still open and Nico’s speech “doesn’t mean anything yet”, within the Barça expedition in the United States, the signing of the Athletic player is now very unlikely.
The priority is therefore Dani Olmo, who is due to join RB Leipzig training this week and for whom Barça will present a definitive proposal to complete a top-level signing.
