The arrival of Nicolas Pepe is set to be one of the biggest deals of the summer.
Arsenal are close to announcing a £72million deal to sign the 22-year-old who will join from Lille on a five-year contract.
Pepe's arrival will be the biggest achievement of Raul Sanllehi's reign as the Gunners' Head of Football, with the winger looking likely to be one of the Premier League's biggest talents this season.
But while Sanllehi has only been at the Emirates for 17 months, his work to sign Nicolas Pepe started long before.
The 50-year-old moved to Arsenal in February 2018, but made his name as part of the set-up with Spanish giants Barcelona.
After spending 11 years with global sports giant, Nike, Sanllehi moved to the Camp Nou in 2003 where he took on a senior role within the club's marketing department.
It was here that the relationship that led to Nicolas Pepe's signing first started to blossom.
During his time in this role, Sanllehi worked under Vice President of Marketing and Media, Marc Ingla - the man who now works as Director General for Pepe's club current club, Lille.
Ingla was a long-standing member of the board during Joan Laporta's reign as president before moving on from the club for a new challenge.
Sanllehi and Ingla stayed in touch during the years since they went their separate ways, and with both men moving on to pastures new, that relationship was never forgotten as Arsenal and Lille respectively went about their business.
While Nicolas Pepe looks set to complete his club-record move to the Emirates Stadium, it seems that Raul Sanllehi deserves huge credit for making the deal.
According to Corriere dello Sport, this connection between the two executives proved to be the key breakthrough over the negotiation table, as reported by TuttoNapoli.net.
It's thought that Arsenal will pay the £72million fee in a number of installments, something which had the potential to make a deal with the French side a non-starter.
However with Sanllehi and Marc Ingla forging a working relationship over a 16-year period, it's likely that the element of trust between the pair has been key to getting the deal to this point.
They say that football is a business forged on relationships, and there's never been a better example of that being true than Arsenal's pursuit of Nicolas Pepe.
