While many reports from England and Brazil claim Chelsea are advancing to sign Pedro Lima from Sport Recife, there are some updates coming from the South American side itself.
Club representative Marcelo Barros this week spoke to Globo Esporte’s Podcast Embolada, and detailed the fullback’s situation amid such a race for his signing.
Without mentioning Chelsea, he confirmed that there are talks with European clubs for the sale, although there’s no hurry to get the transfer done.
“There are many clubs interested. And Pedro and I have been talking to more than one club. But there are slightly more advanced negotiations with one of them. We’re making a very careful assessment. I don’t see a club in Brazil that would make the investment we want for Pedro, and it’s not in the athlete’s interest either. So we’re not too worried. And there are different offers,” said Barros.
“One club wanted to make a slightly higher initial investment straight away, with a future bonus, because it’s an important point: Pedro can continue to earn for us in the long term. You can seek negotiations with the target club based on performance, or whether it’s a full investment now or an investment with a diluted bonus. There’s one club in particular that we’ve made a lot of progress with in terms of formalising a proposal, Sport turned it down, I can say that, a proposal has already been made, and there are talks about renegotiating the deal.”
Globo Esporte names Chelsea as the ‘main’ side who are interested in the player, as they’ve recently sent scouts to watch him, although Liverpool and Manchester City did the same.
There’s just a €10m release clause protecting Lima at Sport, and reports from the English media have been claiming that the Blues are trying to spend a few million less.
With multiple Premier League sides looking at him, it’s becoming clear that some of them will end up finding a deal with the Brazilian club.
