The English media are reporting the Portuguese media reporting a last minute €40m/£34m Everton offer to sign Yacine Brahimi from FC Porto. Or rather, it may be the English media reporting from the Portuguese media who were in turn getting confused about a report from England.
It’s confusing stuff.
For the last month of the transfer window, Brahimi was available for the price of €40m. His release clause is €60m, but Porto were well aware they wouldn’t get that, and even €40m was felt to be a little too high.
Such was the Porto will for a transfer to happen, Brahimi spent the past few weeks of the window training on his own, he wasn’t in matchday squads, and the expectation was he was going, and hopefully someone would pay €40m.
Therefore, claims of a last minute €40m offer don’t match with that. It was something reported by A Bola a few days ago, but they’d got confused by a claim from The Mirror. The English newspaper rightly claimed Porto were demanding that figure, but A Bola got confused and said that Everton had actually made that offer. We covered it here.
The Mirror then did report, from reliable sources that Everton had made a €40m offer. Perhaps A Bola saw into the future.
Now there are new claims in the Portuguese media about a last minute €40m offer being made and rejected, which has ended up in England, via The Liverpool Echo, as Porto holding out for more.
Apparently Porto expected a larger offer from Everton’s local rivals Liverpool, possibly matching the €60m clause.
We’re almost 100% certain this is absolute nonsense and a mash of reports getting confused, Liverpool simply wouldn’t have gone close to €60m for Brahimi.
Whilst Porto may now try to talk up Brahimi’s value ahead of future windows, if Everton had offered €40m on Wednesday afternoon then, as earlier information would suggest, he’d have arrived at the club gift-wrapped.
There are differing claims on this one, with reliable sources convinced the bid was made, however, the club themselves pushed for a month than €40m was what they wanted.
