Friday 23 May 2008

Top meeting with Milan to close Zambrotta deal

Spanish news agency EFE claims that AC Milan president Adriano Galliani (picture) flew this afternoon to Barcelona where he will have a dinner with Barcelona president Joan Laporta. It is expected that the deal on Barcelona right back defender Gianluca Zambrotta (31) will be closed.


Until now the negotiations were held between Barcelona sports director Txiki Begiristain and Milan adviser Ernesto Bronzetti, who met again last Wednesday and Thursday. Catalan radio station RAC 1 claimed that Bronzetti had dinner with Milan manager Carlo Ancelotti and his wife in the 'La barca de Salamanca' restaurant in the Olympic port of Barcelona on Wednesday.

EFE claims that Barcelona asks 12 million euro° for the Italian defender, while Milan offers 8 million euro° with the two clubs possibly to meet in the middle. Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo says the transfer fee will be between 9 and 10 million euro°. Catalan sports paper Sport claims that Barcelona asks 10 million euro°, while Madrid is only offering 7 million euro°.

Beppe Bonetto, the agent of Zambrotta, said yesterday to the last paper that it's up to the clubs now: "Milan is not willing to pay what Barcelona is asking but that's normal in this kind of negotiations. The player is ready to go to Milan if the two clubs in the end come to an agreement."

It is believed that both presidents will also talk about the possible transfers of Barcelona playmaker Ronaldinho (28) and Barcelona forward Samuel Eto'o (27). El Mundo Deportivo says that Bronzetti also asked for Barcelona central defenders Carles Puyol (30) and Rafael Márquez (29) and Barcelona midfielder Deco (30).

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5 comments:

pep said...

° 7-12 million euro =

11-19 million us dollar
5,5-9,5 million british pound

Anonymous said...

Wow! Looks, like Milan's interested in half our club! LOL!...too bad they don't have any players we would be interested in except Kaka...Is 8-10mil the best we can get for Zambrotta? Although it doesn't seem like any other teams are beating down our door to get him either.

pep said...

I actually think 10 million would be a great price. I valued him 7-8.

He's 31 and we want to get rid of him (and everybody knows that, which puts you in a weak position, same goes for Ronaldinho and Deco). He only wants to go to Italy so that exclude a lot of potential candidates.

Maybe you can wait until after the Euro 2008 and hope he plays a great tournament with Inter and Juve joining some kind of bid race then, but you won't get much more (11-12).

A few weeks ago Milan offered 20 million for Zambrotta ànd Ronaldinho, so I'd settle for 10 before they change their mind again.


Reminder:
we bought Zambrotta for 14 million euro two years ago (plus we had to spend 5 million extra for Thuram cause Juventus made that a package deal).

Anonymous said...

You might be right Pep, but my math still tells me that we are getting less return in our investment than what we initially paid for him. Case in point Keita, who looks to be a pretty done deal for 14mil Euro, but considering that Sevilla only paid 3.4mil Euro for him last year makes it seem like they made out like bandits in comparison. I know that it's unfair to compare the two, with Zambrotta on the twilight of his career, but it would be nice if for once Barca could be on the other end of the stick and make a "profit" as a seller every now and then.

pep said...

Well, if we would sell Iniesta or Messi, we would make huge profits. And to pick another example, more comparable to Keita: if we would sell Touré we could probably get the double of the 9 million (plus 4, ok) we paid for him last summer. But do we want that?

We're a top club so you will always have to pay a lot for whatever player you're after (unless he has a clause or his contract expires). If we would have gone after Keita last season instead of Sevilla, Lens would probably have tripled their asking price in a blink.

And you're difficultly gonna sell him afterwards for more, cause if he's good you want to keep him and if he's not nobody wants to pay for him.

You just should be lucky to make profit for a player being a top club, another top club must really want your guy for some reason and must make you an offer you can't refuse (for example Chelsea splashing for Shevchenko).

Look at all top clubs: all their balances are negative in the transfer issue. That's just one of the disadvantages of being a top club. But they have the money to deal with that.

If we sell Eto'o this summer, we'll have a profit on that one for sure.

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