Sokratis Papastathopoulos’ to Arsenal feels like it was first pushed as almost a done deal years ago.
It was actually April, but so much has happened since that it seems an age ago. Bild reported the Borussia Dortmund defender was on the verge of a transfer, and his likely destination was Arsenal.
The German newspaper said the player’s agent, Konstantinos Farras, was in ‘close contact’ with Arsenal.
Sven Mislintat had been behind Sokratis’ move from Werder Bremen to Dortmund in 2013, and the super-scout was again presented as the one pushing for the move this time.
That would mean announcing the deal in July.
Everything is said to be agreed on a deal which will cost Arsenal €16m plus a potential further €2m in bonuses, it’s just the announcement missing.
Quite how this works with Dortmund being a publicly listed company is unclear. Artificially delaying deals to make the accounts look different may be problematic.
