The drama around Dusan Vlahovic continues, with Arsenal repeatedly mentioned as being in the race to sign the Fiorentina player.
October saw claims from Italy that the Gunners had agreed an outline transfer with La Viola, but the player and his agents weren’t interested, at that stage, in a move to the Premier League club.
The figure for the supposed agreement was put at €80m, which immediately started alarm bells ringing. Fiorentina, at least then, were expected to be asking for a fee around €50-70m, with some claims having it dramatically lower, so going in so much higher didn’t make a lot of sense.
Offering €80m without having the player’s desire on their side also didn’t ring true, and it all felt like an effort from Fiorentina to get that big figure out there as some kind of benchmark. Whether Arsenal were in on it or not was unknown.
Regardless of that, the claims continue.
Fiorentina.it quote him as saying: “In the summer there were a couple of concrete offers, with Atletico Madrid on pole. But Commisso imposed himself also hoping that Vlahovic would renew his contract. But the demands of the agents have been higher and higher not to renew. In June, someone like Vlahovic, even if one year from the deadline, could be worth as much as 50 million. In my opinion Juventus will make an attempt in June . To date, only Arsenal have come forward but Vlahovic’s agents have not even answered the phone.”
His comments again make the €80m claim sound way over the top.
Should it be correct that Arsenal are the only club to have made contact, then it seems a lack of general courtesy for Vlahovic’s agents to completely ignore them. A ‘thanks, but no thanks’ wouldn’t be too difficult to conjure up.
The agency represents a large group of mainly Serbian players, and whilst Vlahovic is by far their biggest star, there’s always the possibility they may need to speak to Arsenal about someone else in the future.
