This weekend, Portuguese newspaper A Bola had some big claims on the Premier League chase for Porto fullback Ricardo Pereira.
A story from the newspaper claimed the likes of Arsenal and Tottenham were both interested in the 24-year-old. The clubs were even joined by Everton, who were mentioned by the local press as possible competitors as well.
Interestingly, Leicester City didn’t get a mention in these stories. The Foxes’ wish to have the player had already been reported by the Portuguese media, and was even confirmed by Sport Witness sources, but went silent in the past few days.
But good things come to those who wait, and A Bola now brings some pretty exciting news for Leicester City fans in their Monday issue.
The newspaper claims that despite the stories from the weekend, they’ve now learned the Foxes have made Pereira an offer, and are pretty close to bringing him to England.
Leicester City have reportedly ‘anticipated’ the competition and offered Pereira a long contract, with a ‘luxury salary’, making it easy for the player to say yes to it.
It’s manager Claude Puel who’s said to be having a big influence on the negotiations, since he’s previously worked with Pereira, and succeeded with him at French side Nice.
The words used by A Bola to describe how things stand are ‘extremely high probability margin’, and ‘pratically done’, so you can get the idea of how confident they are that the deal is close.
But even though there’s all this excitement regarding the player’s personal terms, A Bola doesn’t seem to have much information on how much will Leicester be paying Porto for him.
They claim that his release clause isn’t €25m anymore, since that amount was only valid last summer. This year, it’s been raised to €35m.
Pereira’s contract is expiring next year, and since he’s been saying no to Porto’s several attempts to renew it, the club will have to accept an offer and sell him this summer.
Now the Foxes are probably working on a deal to make Porto happy as well.
