Brighton has agreed a fee worth £ 55 million plus £ 5 million in add-ons and has given Joao Pedro permission to fly from Brazil to the United States to complete the move to Chelsea
Chelsea will complete a £ 60 million deal for Joao Pedro – and signed it on time to play in the club World Cup.
Brighton has agreed a fee worth £ 55 million plus £ 5 million in add-ons and has given Pedro permission to fly from Brazil to the United States to complete the move.
Pedro could register that on July 3 by the special deadline of the FIFA World Cup transfer to let him play in the quarterfinals against Palmeiras in Philadelphia on Friday.
Brazil star Pedro, 23, will sign a seven-year contract after Chelsea had defeated the competition from Newcastle that had rejected an offer of £ 50 million.
It is a major coup for Chelsea, but will immediately raise questions about the future of Nicolas Jackson, while Christopher Nunku can leave with interested in Manchester United.
Brighton signed Pedro from Watford in a deal worth around £ 30 million in the summer of 2023 and will make a big profit, because their smart transactions in the transfer market pay wages again.
Pedro, who scored 30 goals in 70 Albion performances, was banned from the Fabian Hurzeler team for the last two Premier League matches of the season after an alleged training ground spatter with Dutch defender Jan Paul van Hecke.
In the meantime, Enzo Maresca labeled the decision to suspend Chelsea's Club World Cup Last-16 draw with Benfica for two hours 'a joke', even when his side finally hit 4-1 winners.
The draw took almost five hours to complete after the teams were forced in, with the blues with 1-0 with four minutes to go thanks to the free kick from Reece James, because of “the risk of lightning near Bank of America Stadium”.
In the resumption, Angel Di Maria equalized a controversial stop-time penalty to bring the game to extra time, only for Christopher Nunku, Pedro Neto and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to seal the victory of Chelsea.
In his press conference, Maresca said about the long delay: “I think it's a joke, to be honest. It's not football, it's completely new, I have trouble understanding.
“I can understand whether they are safety reasons, but if you suspend seven or eight games, it is probably not the right place to do the competition. It is not normal to suspend the game. Being in a world cup is probably how many games are suspended? Zero probably.
“We have been here for two weeks and they have already suspended six or seven games, there are some problems for me personally.
“I am talking as a manager, because if you are in for two hours and you have to try to keep them in the game (the players), they speak for safety reasons with their families outside, they eat, they play, they laugh, how can you keep them focused in for two hours? It's a joke.”