Celta Vigo’s Fer López is set to complete a move to Wolverhampton Wanderers, according to multiple claims from Spain.
Monday’s edition of Atlántico, local to Celta, reports the La Liga club finalised his sale to Wolves on Sunday. The 21-year-old graduated from Celta’s youth system and was promoted to the first team in October.
Atlántico state he has a €20m release clause as a reserve team player and €40m as a first team player. He’s represented by Jorge Mendes, who has close ties with the English club.
The super-agent has taken advantage of his current status as a reserve team player to take the attacking midfielder to Wolves. The report explains they won’t be exercising his clause and instead offered €25m to pay the fee in instalments.
In this way, López will become Celta’s second biggest youth sale, after selling Gabri Veiga to Al-Hilal for €30m.
Another newspaper, La Voz de Galicia, reports Mendes is heading the operation to take his client from Celta to Molineux.
Wolves registered their interest on Friday and a day later the representative was leading their negotiations, before more details emerged on Sunday.
The Spanish club have to raise funds to balance their books before June 30th. Mendes seems to have taken advantage of this and López’s clause to take him to Wolves.
They report the player’s clause will rise from €20m to €40m after this month. The agent wants to avoid this so that’s why he’s working to close the operation before his clause rises.
Faro de Vigo also back it up and also talk of Mendes masterminding the Wolves move to sign López for a fee above his clause. This allows the Premier League club to spread the payment instead of paying it in one go.
