The Portuguese media has been reporting on Arsenal interest in Viktor Gyökeres for many months. Being keen on taking his client to the Premier League club, the striker’s agent has clearly been encouraging reports of a transfer to the Gunners.
That became more serious in the run up to the summer window, and then the saga about the transfer fee started. Gyökeres’ camp believe they were told the player could leave for something like €60m plus €10m in bonus payments, but Sporting president Frederico Varandas went public to say that simply hadn’t been agreed and wouldn’t happen.
Sporting are thought to want around €80m including bonuses. We’ve covered that on multiple occasions, and recently explained a good way for Arsenal to reach that figure. The Gyökeres saga has many similarities to the transfer process which took Bruno Fernandes to Manchester United, including much of the English media incorrectly denying any interest for a long period, and Arsenal can learn a lot from how the Red Devils succeded in the end.
Gyökeres having personally agreed to sign for Arsenal and terms not being an issue was reported months ago in Portugal, so there’s not a great update there. Monday’s edition of Record, the Portuguese newspaper which has been leading on the transfer, reports the Gunners have increased their verbal offer to €65m plus a potential €15m in bonus payments.
That hits the €80m magic number but Sporting aren’t happy with the fixed part and are holding out for €70m. Arsenal officials are said to have been in Lisbon since Friday, and this fresh verbal offer is their latest attempt, following the €55m plus €10m package talked about during the meeting in Menorca three weeks ago, again something which the Portuguese media was well ahead on.
Record report no advance was made as Sunday went on, and a frustrated Gyökeres contacted Varandas to relay his frustration.
Monday’s edition of O Jogo reports an almost identical to situation to that presented by Record, with Arsenal’s offer being €5m away in fixed fee. A Bola’s Monday newspaper even has the €5m figure shouted out from their front page today. Again, the claims mirror those from Record.
Arsenal could surely find a way out here by making €5m of the bonuses so easy to achieve that they can be counted as near-fixed.
CNN Portugal sound confident and state the player is already packing his bags.
Viktor Gyökeres was originally due back in Sporting training on July 1st, and was then given extra time off because he’d been involved in Sweden’s international matches at the beginning of June, except he wasn’t actually involved after withdrawing due to a minor injury and starting his holidays early.
The 27-year-old’s return was postponed to today, the 7th and has now been delayed further to Friday, the 11th, a day before the club go on a training trip to the Algarve. As much as the player doesn’t want to return to Lisbon, it would appear Sporting aren’t keen to drag him back either.
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🤝 And we explain how Arsenal can use Bruno Fernandes agreement as template to get deal done… 👇https://t.co/riS0ATPrCk #afc
— Sport Witness (@Sport_Witness) July 1, 2025