On Tuesday, Nicolo Zaniolo announced to the Italian media that he would like to return to his home country once he leaves Aston Villa at the end of the season.
The playmaker hasn’t made the impact both the Villans and he will have wanted this season on loan from Galatasaray, which is why he will very likely be heading back to Turkey.
Over in Italy, there are clubs already looking into repatriating him, including Fiorentina, as pointed out by Corriere dello Sport.
It’s revealed that the former CEO of the Serie A side, Joe Barone, who unexpectedly passed away last week, met the Aston Villa loanee’s agent, Claudio Vigorelli, ‘a few days before’.
The newspaper explain Fiorentina are targeting the Italy international to replace Nico Gonzalez should the Argentine be sold.
They point out the player is ‘destined to return’ to Turkey from Aston Villa at the end of the season, as the Premier League side will not be spending €27m to make the move permanent.
Once he does, the Villans are ‘eliminated from the scenario’, meaning Fiorentina would only have to deal with Galatasaray.
The club can ‘guarantee him a return to Serie A’, which he really wants, but they would have to sort out a plan for his wages, as the €4m/year he earns will not be a ‘simple obstacle’.
In short, starting the process to get Zaniolo was Joe Barone’s ‘last gift’ to his beloved club, as he had ‘started working on a sensational transfer operation’, which, if they can pull off, would make everyone happy.
It’s also worth recalling that the Aston Villa man spent five years at Fiorentina in their youth levels from 2010 to 2015.
