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The battle for young footballers is now an intense one in the game and it seems Newcastle United find themselves in one with Real Betis.

Estadio Deportivo cover the situation today and how the Spanish side are refusing to give up on Georgian youngster Vakhtang Salia despite Newcastle also chasing him.

The newspaper explains that ‘Betis discovered him’ when he was just 16 years old and already negotiated his transfer, following him closely since then with a view to a future operation.

In the interim, though, a ‘tough opponent’ for his signature has arrived in the form of Newcastle, who have ‘advanced’ in their efforts to sign him.

Newcastle have been moving to snatch the player away from Betis and reports in Georgia and the UK have claimed that they have an agreement in place with Dinamo Tbilisi.

There has been no official announcement on the matter, though, and so Betis are insistent that they still have a chance and the route to the player ‘is not completely closed’.

That seems to be more in hope than anything else amid an attitude from Betis that seems to be built on nothing more than we saw him first and he’s ours.

Either way, he’s a name to keep an eye on nonetheless, with Newcastle United pushing and Betis not very happy about that fact after the effort they’ve already put in.