Lucas Lima’s agent Wagner Ribeiro has confirmed that Crystal Palace made an official bid for the midfielder this summer.
Speaking to ESPN Brasil, he was commenting on Lucas Lima bids from abroad, starting with the Chinese offers from earlier this year: “He rejected it, he said something better would come, since he wanted a better club. I respected it.
“Now in this window from June to August he received two more offers, but he also didn’t want it because it was not from a big club, which is his dream. It was from England, from Crystal Palace. And the other bid was from Zenit from Russia.”
Reports from Italy said Crystal Palace had agreed a €15m fee with Santos and were willing to pay the player €2.5m a season.
Wagner Ribeiro also said that Santos have no intention to sell, since the club own only 10% of the player’s economical rights. That would not be enough to buy a proper replacement, so they’d rather let his contract expire at the end of 2017.
Lucas Lima is still looking for a better offer from Europe, but considering how he has been playing this year, it will be hard to get it.
