Jules Kounde And FC Barcelona Expect Player To Sign On Tuesday

Jules Kounde expects to sign for FC Barcelona on Tuesday, with the club also confident that the Sevilla player can be locked down then.

Kounde looked destined for Chelsea before the weekend, until Barca, according to Gerard Romero, made a late offer for him that was accepted by the Andalusians.

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CA tried to debunk these claims, and said that sources at Sevilla had told them that Barca were yet to lodge an official proposal.

On Sunday evening in Catalonia, however, SPORT confirmed that Barca had indeed reached an agreement with Sevilla for the France international’s transfer.

Said arrangement sees Barca paying €50mn ($51.2mn) for the 23-year-old up front and then a further €10mn ($10.2mn) later in add-ons.

Over at Mundo Deportivo on Monday morning, they say that Kounde expects to sign for his new club on Tuesday.

Back at SPORT, it is believed that president Joan Laporta and his board expect to have the deal over the line by then too.

Landing Kounde would see Barca deliver their third marquee signing of the summer after Robert Lewandowski joined from Bayern Munich and Raphinha switched from Leeds United just over a week ago.

Furthermore, the Blaugrana will also become the club that has spent the most in the current window until now if they also purchase the Les Bleus star who is certain to form part of France’s World Cup squad which defends its title in Qatar in November.

After this, all that is left to secure is the signature of Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva, who has been rated at anything between €80-100mn ($82-102mn) and is said to have agreed terms with Xavi Hernandez’s men through his agent Jorge Mendes.

Yet none of this would have been possible without astute maneuvering from Laporta, who inherited a club in $1.5bn’s worth of debt thanks to his reckless predecessor Josep Bartomeu, but has now, thanks to selling off 25% of the club’s TV rights for the next 25 years, managed to give Xavi the best possible team that is capable of challenging for major honors next season.

On Saturday, a 1-0 win over Real Madrid in Las Vegas where new signing Raphinha shone and scored a sensational winner was already an encouraging sign of possible positive things to come.