INTER MILAN will this week tell Manchester United they will meet their £75million asking price for Romelu Lukaku – but only in a deal including bonus payments.
United last week made it clear to the Italian club that they were not prepared to drop their valuation of the 26-year-old striker.
The Serie A side have now accepted they are going to have to break the bank to bring in Antonio Conte’s number one target.
But they are only in a position to come up with a guaranteed £60m over three years, with the further £15m dependent on how successful Lukaku is at the San Siro.
They are set to propose a down payment of around £40m up front, with the balance spread over the next 24 months.
That would allowed them to absorb the cost across three Financial Fair Play periods.
Their hope is the initial payment offer will be enough to convince United to sell, in the knowledge they would then have to go out and find a replacement for Lukaku before the start of the season.
United and Inter meet in a friendly in Shanghai on Saturday, but the Italian club are likely to make their offer before then.
Lukaku fuelled speculation that the deal is close when he told reporters in Australia: “You will know something next week.”
But Mauro Icardi is threatening to scupper his move to Italy by seeing out his contract with the Serie A giants until 2021.
Award winning journalist and writer who has worked as a stringer for a couple of acclaimed South Africa based German journalists, covered 3 Ugandan elections, 2008 Kenya election crisis, with interests in business and sports reporting.
