Catalan sports paper Sport claims that Barcelona has reached an agreement on the transfer of Villareal central defender and Uruguayan international Martín Cáceres (21). The deal could be announced today.
Barcelona's first offer of 15 million euro° was last week rejected (read more here). Villareal held on to the buyout clause of 20 million euro°, an amount the club has to share with Uruguayan club Defensor Sporting de Montevideo, the former club who still holds 50% of the rights of the player (note: some sources are still claiming that it's actually his agent who holds that other half).
Barcelona refused to pay the buyout fee and was considering other options like paying a part of the sum in variables or convincing Defensor to accept a lower fee. Villareal bought half of Cacerés' transfer rights last summer, paying between 1,5 and 2 million euro°. Catalan sports paper Sport claims that the final fee would be 17 million euro° plus 3 million euro° variables.
Villareal seems to assume for a while now that Cáceres will leave this summer and is already looking to replace him. Madrid sports tabloid Marca claimed last week that the club had contacted the agent of French defender Pascal Cygan, whose contract with Villareal expires this month and who had been told he could leave, to ask the player to postpone a decision on his future for ten days. If Cáceres leaves, Villareal in the end could offer Cygan a renewal.
Villareal chief executive José Manuel Llaneza told journalists yesterday that a deal on Cáceres was very close: "Every day that goes by, the situation is moving in the right direction and that makes one think that an agreement should be near, although I cannot yet confirm that we have a final deal."
Cáceres meanwhile didn't stop giving interviews (Spanish television station La Sexta, Spanish local television station Canal Nou, Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo twice, Madrid sports tabloid Marca, Catalan radio station COM Ràdio) basically repeating the same: he wouldn't mind staying in Villareal, but Barcelona is a great club which he couldn't say 'no' to and he hoped there would be an agreement soon.
In an interview with Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo, Cáceres, who is believed to have a personal agreement with Barcelona on a four-year contract earning 2 million euro plus incentives a year (read more here), said that he was close to joining Real Madrid two weeks ago: "Madrid wanted me and everything seemed to be agreed upon. I don't know why it didn't went through in the end."
After he spend days waiting at his house in Huelva, Cáceres yesterday flew off to Ururguay to join the national team. Daniel Fonseca, his agent, had asked the player to postpone the start of his holidays because a deal seemed close. And if an agreement on the transfer would be found, Cáceres could then immediately travel to Barcelona to undergo the medical tests and to sign the contract.
Read more:
Villareal rejects offer for Caceres
Deal with Caceres
How things stand: Central defenders
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Deal on Caceres
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4 comments:
15-20 million euro =
24-32 million us dollar
12-16 million british pound
1,5-2,0 million euro =
2,4-3,2 million us dollar
1,2-1,6 million british pound
Ok,this allows us to chuck marquez out the window and generate enough cash for the alves transfer.
Only problem is that guardiola has aksed the board to hold on to marquez.This would mean that the central defence would be made up of puyol/caceres/pique/milito.Marquez would be pushed up to the midfield role, which would mean that either keita is the replacement of deco(oh shit!!) or that toure is on his way out (again oh shit!!!).This is however just speculation and im sure it could not possibly be that bad.
Let's also not forget that if Hleb signs that could create another logjam in midfield if Marquez is pushed to more of a midfielder role. Too many chefs in the kitchen! And signing Caceres while selling Marquez isn't going to "even out the books" for Barcelona either. If Barcelona had NOT signed Keita and (soon possibly Hleb) I'm quite sure that Alves would already have been in the fold by now!...I am so confounded as to what in the world is going through the minds of Txixi, Laporta and Guardiola these days because I can't make any bloody sense of it! They obviously must know something "we" don't. All we needed was 5 players - Alves (RB), Diego (AM) Pique (CB) Silva (LW) & Diego Alves (G). We didn't need Keita and we don't need Hleb either and could probably "survive" without Caceres if Marquez stays! I just don't get it.
If Hleb signs... maybe Hleb is going to be playing Left Midfield as the signing of Silva from previous entries of this blog is very difficult... Maybe Hleb is being signed as a second option to Silva (Although if any possibility to sign David Silva over Hleb... Silva would be very much better option than Hleb playing in the left)
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