Ole! is Argentina’s biggest sport newspaper and Sunday’s edition has Valentin Barco on the front page, and of course it’s all about a potential move to Brighton & Hove Albion this month.
However, it’s no longer presented as potential but rather something which is set to happen… whether Boca Juniors like it or not.
According to Ole!, Barco has decided to join Brighton and doesn’t want to work with the Argentine club to push his price higher.
The versatile 19-year-old has put Boca ‘between a rock and a hard place’. They now have to either accept Brighton’s offer – which has been put at $9m plus 10% of a future move – or the player’s $10m clause will be triggered on Monday.
Ole! say that on Saturday, Barco informed Juan Román Riquelme, Boca Juniors’ president, and the club’s board know ‘if they do not accept the English team’s offer, he is willing to execute the $10,000,000 clause’.
There had been hope at Boca Juniors that a renewal could be signed with a higher clause which would force a European club to pay more than the $10m, an amount which is seen as far too low for a player of Barco’s potential.
The player’s decision ‘hasn’t gone down well’ at Boca, and they plan to make things as difficult as possible and throw ‘obstacles’ in the way.
What that actually means, and whether they’ll go through with such games, remains to be seen.
Either way, transfer drama is on the way for Brighton.
