In Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Viktor Gyökeres, the saga had met a new and frustrating bump in the road.
Record reported there was ‘profound disagreement‘ between Arsenal and Sporting on how the €10m in bonus payment is compiled. Club sources appeared to be saying only €3m of the bonuses are easily achievable, whereas player camp sources had it at €5m instead.
Earlier reports had explained Federico Varandas even had aims for Sporting to secure €7.5m worth of the bonuses during the striker’s first season at Arsenal.
Fast forward to Wednesday, and Record have a headline stating there’s only €2.5m different between the clubs. And, perhaps look away Arsenal fans who can’t even deal with another minute of this saga, it’s explained Sporting and the Gunners hope to have agreed the Viktor Gyökeres deal by the weekend.
Record now have Sporting’s bonus demands: ‘€2.5m for the first 20 games in England; a second 20-game season will guarantee an additional €2.5m; qualification for the Champions League will be worth another €2.5m; and finally, a new block of 20 games in the second season would guarantee the remaining €2.5m.’
Arsenal only want €7.5m of the bonuses to be reasonably achievable, though.
The Gunners obviously want Gyökeres to be able to fly out with them at the weekend for their preseason tour, and thankfully that is providing some motivation to hurry up a little please gentlemen.
Wednesday’s edition of O Jogo hasn’t really taken a step forward from yesterday and is a clear step behind Record.
If requite a further headache on this summer Wednesday morning, A Bola provide it: ‘There was much news yesterday regarding the closure of the process, which, according to what we were able to ascertain, is not true. There are still (many) points to be settled. Not only the bonus issue, which may be resolved in the coming days given this new approach, but also the payment terms for this operation, something that has not yet been discussed.’
Same time tomorrow then!