Saturday 17 May 2008

Keita to replace Deco

Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo claims that Barcelona has found a personal agreement with Sevilla central midfielder and Mali international Seydou Keita (28), who is now said to be the one who should replace Barcelona midfielder Deco (30) (read more here).


Barcelona has been following the player, who joined Sevilla last summer, since he played with Lens in the French league. Future Barcelona manager Josep Guardiola would have picked Keita as one of the first players (together with Sevilla right back defender Daniel Alves) out of a list with possible transfer targets that was presented to him by Barcelona sports director Txiki Begiristain.

Catalan sports paper Sport says that Sevilla president José María del Nido and Sevilla sports director Monchi will meet on Monday with Pascal Boisseau, the agent of Keita, to discuss the situation of the player whose contract expires in 2010. It is expected that Sevilla will offer the player a renewal.

There now seems to be some uncertainty about the buyout clause of Keita. While it was initially believed that the fee was 14 or 15 million euro° (read more here), Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo reported that Sevilla claims that the buyout fee is 30 million euro°. Madrid sports tabloid Marca states that Barcelona has already made a first bid of 10 million euro° for the Malian midfielder, for whom Sevilla paid 4 million euro° one year ago.

Earlier this week it was rumoured that Barcelona could try to include Sevilla team-mates Keita and Alves in one single deal. Catalan sports paper Sport claims that Barcelona plans to offer 40 million euro° for the two players. Madrid sports tabloid Marca claims that Barcelona would be ready to pay 35 million euro° for the two while Sevilla wants to receive 45 million euro° for their two key players.

Read more here:

3 comments:

pep said...

° 10-15 million euro =

16-24 million us dollar
8-12 million british pound


4 million euro =

6,4 million us dollar
3,2 million british pound


35-45 million euro =

56-72 million us dollar
28-36 million british pound

Anonymous said...

I wish barca sign both keita and alves in the next week. They are both so important and great players...

Anonymous said...

Falling short of qualifying for the Champions League next year I think its going to make life that much harder on Del Nido if he expects to drive a hard bargain. I certainly wouldn't pay more than 40mil. Euro for the pair. It would be nice to see Barcelona include a player in the deal, thus lowering the transfer cost a bit. But I suspect Sevilla is after cold hard cash so that they can rebuild with their own targets in mind.

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