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After a little over a week of vague rumors of interest, we found out on Wednesday that Napoli had an agreement with Sampdoria (and Juventus) on terms to purchase the rights to Manolo Gabbiadini. The deal is reportedly for some €11 million plus add-ons that could see the transfer fee rise to €13 million, a price that may be somewhat steep for Gabbiadini, but also one that makes sense for Napoli to pay.
Of course, for any transfer to actually go through, club and player must come to terms on a new contract. To that end, Napoli sporting director Riccardo Bigon met with Gabbiadini's agent yesterday, and according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the talk went quite well.
"It is almost certain Manolo Gabbiadini in January will be a Napoli player. The meeting between Riccardo Bigon, D.S. Neapolitan club, and Silvio Pagliari, agent of [Gabbiadini], has had a positive outcome: the two sides have reached an agreement and at this point, since there was already agreed between the clubs, everything suggests that soon [the deal will be signed]."-Source: La Gazzetta dello Sport
The rumor mill is churning out reports that Napoli will pay €1.5 million per year in wages for Gabbiadini, a figure that works out to just under €29,000 per week. That's roughly two and a half times what Gabbi currently makes with Sampdoria, which makes for a very handsome raise indeed.
Despite some vague words from Samp manager Sinisa Mihajlovic to the press yesterday that some in the media took as a threat to block the move (they weren't, he was just being grumpy), it looks like everything on this deal is humming along nicely. Barring something major blowing up in the meantime, everything looks set for Gabbiadini to take a physical and get unveiled at soon as the transfer window opens next month. You are now allowed to get excited, folks!