From Brazil: Manchester City signing stopped due to FFP, Guardiola likes player a lot

Back in December, Fox Sports journalist Rodrigo Bueno had some big claims about the future of the Grêmio forward Éverton.

Bueno claimed that the player was close to being sold in a €43m deal. And when asked on Twitter who would take him, he said the ‘most interested’ side were Manchester City.

A few months passed, and Éverton was never sold. He continues to do pretty well at Grêmio, though, which means the transfer rumours are not going away.

Now Bueno is back with new claims, this time saying that Milan director Leonardo has travelled to Brazil to try to close a deal for Everton.

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The journalist has said that Everton is protected by an €80m release clause, which is obviously too much for Brazilian standards, so it’s likely that he will end up leaving for much less than that.

But there were also claims about Manchester City, with Rodrigo Bueno saying that things didn’t work out because of the Financial Fair Play.

“The expectation of Grêmio is that Everton will not finish the Libertadores at Grêmio, he should leave in the middle of the year, possibly. He was very close on signing for Manchester City, Guardiola likes him very much, but things didn’t go through, Fair Play Financial things. So there may be a deal now with Milan, with the help of Leonardo.”

By ‘Guardiola likes him very much’, we can recall the rumours which said the manager had called the player. The story, however, was dismissed by Everton himself, who said he would accept even a Whatsapp message from the Catalan boss.