• Premier League

Chelsea likely to miss out on Luiz

Harry Harris, ESPNsoccernet
January 26, 2011
David Luiz is rated at £25 million © PA Photos
Enlarge

A snag over as little as £1 million has put David Luiz's transfer from Benfica to Chelsea on the verge of collapse, ESPNsoccernet can reveal.

Luiz has been linked with a move to Stamford Bridge for weeks, but his club Benfica are standing firm over his £25 million asking price. Benfica have been offered €25million (£21.5 million) plus one of Chelsea's young players valued at €5million, taking the overall deal to €30million.

However, the Portuguese club just want the cash as they only take €18.75 million of the fee themselves, while their investment fund Benfica Stars are entitled to €6.25million. Former clubs Vitoria Bahia will also get a bonus of €560,000 and Sao Paulo €187,000.

Benfica are still refusing to sanction a deal, despite Chelsea's offer to split the difference and a source close to the on-going impasse over the deal told ESPNsoccernet: "The problem is over no more than £1 million. There is a lot of work to be done to get this deal through, if it is at all possible to do so.

"The truth is that Benfica don't want to sell, as they think they will get far more money for Luiz in the summer, so they won't budge from their stance of wanting £25 million, and there are further complications over the way the money is then split once it gets to Benfica."

Chelsea booked a work permit application for Luiz for Wednesday in anticipation of finally completing the drawn out transfer, but with the transfer window rapidly closing there is still no resolution to the row over the player's price and the deal looks set to collapse.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Close

ABOUT COOKIES

To help make this website better, to improve and personalize your experience and for advertising purposes, are you happy to accept cookies and other technologies.

More Info Here Cookie Choices