Chadi Riad’s impending move from Real Betis to Crystal Palace is part of a ‘profound restructuring’ at the Spanish club, who seem to be completely overhauling their defence this summer.
That’s according to Diario de Sevilla, who say Riad’s move to Crystal Palace will be one of several as the Spanish club completely rebuild the base of their team.
The newspaper reports that Betis are finalising Riad’s move to Crystal Palace, with negotiations still underway between the two clubs over a deal that is likely to be €15m plus €2m in variables.
Talks between the two sides are progressing towards a ‘final understanding’, at which point Betis will officially purchase Riad from Barcelona before then selling him on the Eagles.
That deal, as has been explained elsewhere, will see them earn around €6m, plus €1m in variables, as they will have to pay to buy Riad permanently and hand over half of their profits to Barcelona too.
Sport back this up, in fact they go one step further, and report that Crystal Palace and Betis have a verbal agreement in place and all that remains is to draft the contract and a final few other details.
They go into further detail on the Barcelona side of things, explaining how they’ve played something of a transfer game to ensure Premier League cash ends up in their pockets.
The Catalans could have taken Riad back this summer and have known about Premier League interest for months but have worked out that the current arrangement will ensure they earn more money in the bank.
They’ve left themselves as a ‘simple spectator’ of the negotiations between Betis and Crystal Palace, rather than being actively involved, and thanks to various clauses, that means they’ll end up getting more profit than if they’d been right in the middle of proceedings.
They’ll end up earning around €10-11m for the transfer, which they want sealed long before June 30th so it can go on their books and help balance them out.
