Sandro Tonali’s agent, Giuseppe Riso has confirmed the player has an agreement in place with Newcastle United and a deal is close to being completed.
The agent has been speaking to Gazzetta dello Sport upon returning to Italy from Romania, where the midfielder is currently with Italy’s U21s.
Newcastle have been pushing for a deal throughout this week as they launch their summer building ahead of next season in the Champions League.
A deal has been steadily progressing, with representatives from the club and his agents meeting in Cluj to finalise the matter and get it over the line.
Gazzetta pick up on that today and explain that there was a meeting between Tonali’s agents and Newcastle this week to finalise an agreement between the Magpies and the player.
The representatives from Newcastle wanted to meet Tonali in person, a meeting that led to rumours of the player undergoing a medical and a deal being close to completion.
The newspaper insists that is not the case but the negotiations between Milan and the Magpies have intensified in the last 48 hours so that they have ‘defined practically all the details’ of the operation.
An announcement is not expected soon, and indeed will take a few more days, but the midfielder will sign a six-year deal worth €8m per season at St James Park. Milan, meanwhile, will pocket around €70m and a percentage on a resale.
The situation is progressing calmly, and a deal is very much in the final stages, as confirmed by Riso when he returned to Italy.
“Mission accomplished? Not yet, there are still a few days to go, just a little bit more,” he is quoted as saying.
“Sandro is calm, he knows that when such important offers arrive, from such important properties, it is difficult to refuse both for the club and for the boy.
“We have reached a player-side agreement, they are defining the one between clubs: once that is done, in the next few days he will do the medical examinations. A matter of bonuses and technical details, bureaucratic things.
“I am satisfied because it is a great operation, Sandro will help Milan and also Brescia, whom he loves so much, in this operation too.
“It is a perfect project for him, they want him at all costs, and he will be the reference point. And the Premier League is like the NBA, everyone dreams of the NBA. Tears? No, absolutely not, the boy thinks about the national team.”