At the moment, it looks like Edinson Cavani is going to be the most expensive signing of the summer, with PSG coming out ahead of a pack that includes Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester City in signing the Napoli & Uruguay striker.
The name of Cavani has been mentioned with a move to a bigger club for over a year, and for quite some time, Manchester City seemed like the team that might end up with him, but Napoli’s insistence that the full amount of his release clause be paid (€63 million) drove them away.
Real Madrid and Chelsea have also been in the race, but Real were quite slow in reacting to the action, while PSG advanced very quickly in settling personal terms with Cavani, which seem to be a five-year deal for a total of €40 million.
The price? The Daily Mail reports the French champions will pay £50 million, which is just under the release clause, but that should be enough to secure his departure. Reports in Italy suggest Napoli will ask for more money all of a sudden because some sort of payment has to be dealt back to Palermo (his former club) and Napoli want PSG to share the burden, but regardless, there seem to be very few obstacles remaining in the way for this transfer to be complete.
Unlike previous reports, there will be no outrageous trade involving Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is always out looking for new challenges, but playing for Napoli doesn’t seem to be one of them. At first glance, it will be quite difficult to see how Cavani, Ibrahimovic and Lavezzi co-exist in the same lineup, but those are Laurent Blanc’s problems now, and there are worse problems to have.