As has been the trend so far for the Mousa Dembélé from Tottenham to Inter story, Corriere dello Sport report something, which is then picked up later on by the rest of the Italian press, like Gazzetta dello Sport.
It normally involves a bit more digging, expanding on what the original report has said, which is exactly what’s happened with the Kia Joorabchian news from Wednesday.
Corriere explained there was a chance the agent could be involved in the negotiations, mostly to help the two clubs find an agreement on the price, and Gazzetta believe his arrival on the scene could see Joao Mario included in the deal to lower the asking price.
Tottenham have been widely reported to want around €30m, despite Dembélé only having a year left on his deal, which Inter feel is a bit much.
Wanting to get rid of Joao Mario, the Serie A side would be happy to include him in the deal, hoping to only spend around €15-16m on the Belgian midfielder.
This means he’d only leave for the equivalent €14-15m, leaving Inter with a loss of €24-25m, which they have to make up somehow for FFP reasons.
That’s the biggest obstacle in this whole thing, even if the Serie A club’s hope is to get some kind of pre-agreement before the World Cup, which is optimistic.
It’s hard to tell how serious this all is, seeing as nothing has really happened yet, but we’re not sure where Tottenham stand on the whole ‘receiving Joao Mario’ thing.
