Real Madrid have agreed a deal with Internazionale to sign Mateo Kovacic for a fee of €32m with a further €3m in add-ons. The clubs have been in talks over the weekend and the young Croat was left out of Inter’s friendly against AEK Athens on Sunday.
Late on Sunday a deal was reached for the player, who had attracted Liverpool’s interest earlier in the transfer window. Inter have always maintained that the player would not leave for less than €35m, a fee the Premier League club was not prepared to pay.
The 21-year-old’s agent, Mario Mamic, has agreed a package with the Spanish club and the transfer is set to go through after the player signs his contract on Monday and has his medical this week. The midfielder, who models his game on Andrés Iniesta’s, joined Inter from Dinamo Zagreb in 2013 and has scored five goals in 80 league games for the Milan club.
The Inter manager, Roberto Mancini, said on Sunday: “We need to sell Mateo because of Financial Fair Play. We are sorry because he is a good player but those are the rules. Now we can try to sign some other players.”
Inter are likely to use some of the money from the Kovacic transfer to sign Fábio Coentrão, from Real Madrid, and Ivan Perisic, from Wolfsburg.
