Another day, and yet more Gerard Deulofeu claims, this time from Italy. Calciomercato state a meeting will take place ‘in the coming days’ between Deulofeu’s entourage and Robert Fernandez, Barcelona’s transfer chief.
The reason behind the meeting is that Everton owned Deulofeu wants to make it clear he has no intention of returning to Barcelona to be a bit-part player. Struggling under Ronald Koeman at Everton, Deulofeu has found some form at Milan and is aware sitting on Barcelona’s bench could kill his dream to be at the World Cup next year.
That all sounds fairly reasonable.
However, Calciomercato then claim that Barcelona could use their €12m buyback clause with Everton, but sell the player on for something in the region of €20m.
It’s worth once again going back to what former Everton manager Roberto Martinez explained in 2015: “There are certain things in the deal. They can’t take him back in the winter so they can’t take him back in January. It can only be at the end of the season. It is €9m for the first year and €12m in the second year.
“If they take him back they can’t sell him for a season, so he has to stay in the first-team squad for a season. At the end of that if they decide to sell him we have got first rights of getting him back or we have got a big percentage of that deal. There is nothing we can do if they activate it. That was the deal and the only way we could access the player in the terms that we wanted. I’m delighted with the deal.”
Everton may need to provide some clarity on this, if only for the Italian and Spanish media.
