The Daily Viktor Gyökeres: Varandas doesn’t want Arsenal ‘pure illusion’ bonus terms

Monday’s edition of Record shouts out ‘Agreement in sight’ as Arsenal get very close to completing a deal to sign Viktor Gyökeres from Sporting CP.

There’s been a big jump over the weekend after the striker failed to turn up for preseason training on Friday. It had been the third date, after Sporting had delayed him showing up twice, in an effort to avoid the near inevitable step of the player going AWOL.

After that, things appear to have heated up. As would be expected.

Record report Sporting have secured the €70m plus €10m they wanted, with the player’s agent taking a hit by giving up his €6.5m cut, meaning Sporting actually get €63.5m plus €10m but finish with the amount they were aiming for.

However, Federico Varandas is determined that the €10m will be achievable, so much so that by the end of Gyökeres first season with Arsenal, Sporting will have secured an extra €7.5m.

Arsenal want the bonuses to be 50/50, so half are easy to achieve the other half difficult.

Intriguingly, Record report Arsenal have wanted to pay over four years. Sporting then asked the Gunners to cover the costs of a factoring agreement. That would see the Lisbon club get all the money in one go via a finance deal, and is something which isn’t so unusual in Portuguese football.

Such a finance agreement would have cost Sporting €1.5m, and they asked Arsenal to pay. That was refused and then Sporting are said to have requested the transfer fee is paid over two years instead.

A Bola cover similar about the general negotiations, and report Sporting president Federico Varandas has won in those negotiations, with Gyökeres’s agent having to give up his commission. Whether Arsenal plan to pay the agent something separately isn’t known and perhaps may never be, but it’s not a development which could be ruled out.

A Bola also go with the 50/50 on the €10m in bonus statements, and state the second €5m is subject to ‘much more complicated’ conditions and Sporting don’t want that.

O Jogo report Varandas doesn’t want the second €5m chunk of bonuses to be ‘pure illusion’, so potential income in word but very unlikely to happen in reality.

The Sporting president has been strong on this before, publicly mocking Tottenham Hotspur after their offer for Bruno Fernandes included bonuses which would be triggered by Spurs winning the Premier League and Champions League.