West Ham United bid £15m-plus for Yuri Alberto as dual ownership transfer update emerges after Tim Steidten jets out
West Ham tabled a bid of €18million [£15.4m] for Yuri Alberto but had the offer “immediately rejected” by Corinthians, according to Gazeta Esportiva.
The Brazilian outlet reported via their website on Monday (28 August) that the offer was only for 60% of the player’s rights, with 30% each coming from current club Corinthians and former side Zenit St Petersburg respectively, with the two sides retaining a 20% share each.
According to the report Alberto’s camp “welcomed” the chance to move to the Premier League in this window but made clear they would not force a move, so while a further bid from the London Stadium not ruled out it will now take an “extraordinary” offer to tempt his club back into a “hasty negotiation”.
West Ham are looking to replace Gianluca Scamacca before the deadline and had sent technical director Tim Steidten out to negotiate in person after success in doing so for Mohammed Kudus, but have other striker options on their list.
Unlikely
If there is one club that knows signing players from South America with issues around third-party ownership is a no go it is West Ham after the fall-out from the Carlos Tevez deal.
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So it seems next to impossible that the Hammers would have been trying to bring in Alberto while leaving a percentage of his rights in the hands of a third and fourth party.
If the club want the 22-year-old they are obviously going to have to put enough money on the table to buy him outright, and by the sounds of things it will need to be a major fee full stop to get Corinthians to let him go.
Should the club decide that the once-capped Brazil international has the ability to be a star of the future then it may be worthwhile doing so.
But there is no time left to be haggling for a low-value deal as happened so often early in the summer, so it is surely a matter of making a strong bid or moving onto the other targets such as Pedro or Youssef En-Nesyri.
The Irons must be pretty serious to have sent Steidten out to Brazil so an offer Corinthians can’t refuse shouldn’t be ruled out in the final days, but it sounds like a complicated affair otherwise and the German may find it more fruitful to push for ahead for another forward instead.
In other West Ham news, £128million transfer news has put the Irons under threat of losing one of their star players before the deadline.
