Monday could be a very important day for Romelu Lukaku and Chelsea, if Gazzetta dello Sport’s article is correct.
The reason for that is because the Belgian’s lawyer, Sébastien Ledure, will ‘speak to the Blues’ about his client’s desire to leave Stamford Bridge permanently, with a move to Inter Milan the preferred option.
Gazzetta state this would be the ‘official start of the negotiations’, although there is still a fair bit of work to be done, namely getting the price of Chelsea’s requests down to make any deal more favourable for the Italians.
The newspaper are clear that Monday ‘is the day of the meeting’, seeing it a bit like ‘the cork that comes off the bottle’.
Ledure has ‘the blessing of Inter’ to conduct the move, as the Serie A side believe this upcoming meeting with ‘kick-off the negotiations’ that they hope won’t drag on for too long, as they want Lukaku in the blue and black once more.
The player himself will have some contact with Chelsea on Monday too, but it’s revealed that it ‘will simply be by telephone’, as his lawyer will be the one holding the physical meeting, backed by Roc Nation, who ‘look after the interest of the player’.
It’s stated the initial objective is to ‘draw out’ the Blues for some talks, with it widely known the Stamford Bridge side would much rather see Lukaku leave for Al-Hilal for more money.
They’ve had to accept that won’t be happening, as the Belgian doesn’t want to go anywhere other than Inter, who have told him that ‘everything possible will be done’ from their end to strike a deal with Chelsea.
The belief is the Blues will tell Ledure they want €45m for their forward, but will also be told by Ledure that the Italians are ready to go further than the loan with an obligation to buy and want to ‘propose the immediate purchase of the player’.
Once André Onana has gone to Manchester United, Inter will ‘officially give the incoming numbers’ and they would not want to go beyond €35m, bonuses included.
They reckon that will be enough, in the end, to get something over the line, and Romelu Lukaku has no intention of breaking the pact he has with the Italians.
In fact, he will ‘not show up for pre-season’ on the 12th at Cobham, because ‘the opening of an official negotiations between the two clubs’ will be enough reason for him to ‘avoid the hassle of this trip to London’.
Not only that, but it’s believe Lukaku will also make further financial efforts to help the Serie A side, ready to drop his wages to €7.5m excluding bonuses, which is what he was on when Antonio Conte was his manager at San Siro.
For their finances, Inter would also be willing to give him a contract until 2027 (his Chelsea one is until 2026), also allowing them to spread the cost of the transfer over an extra year to help their books.
