Italian interest at £12m not viable

The are several stories about Paulinho doing the rounds from Italy and Brazil yet they all seem to blindly report what a reporter reports and we know they invent stories to sell papers all the time. The stories may have legs but the fees involved suggest one more likely than the other.

Italian interest at £12m not viable


The alarm bells rang last season when he comment that he was too lazy to learn English showed he doesn't have a winning mentality. If he had, he'd do everything needed to improve so the fact that he wouldn't means he can't possibly give 100%. He could give his best but his best wouldn't be good enough because there is untapped potential he is not prepared to bring out.

He has therefore been earmarked as one of the players we need to offload. Offloading him is not a problem but Daniel Levy will want to recoup most, if not all, of the £17.36 million (€22.15m - $27m) we paid Corinthians.

The Italians would like to take him, one of those being Inter Milan. The suggestion is that he would go there on loan and then they would sign him for £12 million (€15.31m - $18.65m) or €12 million (£9.40m - $14.63m).

Unless the loan fee is £5m (€6.38m - $7.77m) or £8m (€10.21m - $12.43m) for 6 months then it does not stack up as a deal Levy would authorise. Paulinho's contract runs until 2018 so his value remains high, despite not playing much.

Cruzeiro club sporting director, Alexandre Mattos, told Radio Itatiaia that the Brazilians were the favourites to sign Paulinho with his agent attempting to arrange a deal in his homeland.

“Paulinho may come in on loan, his agent is looking at Brazilian teams and his first choice will probably be Cruzeiro."

A loan deal and then shift him in the summer when his value will be around the mark we paid is far more likely than arranging a cut price deal now, it doesn't make any financial sense. Both free a non-home grown place in the squad and we know there will be plenty of interest in him so moving him on shouldn't be a problem.