Quantcast
Home   >   Transfer News   >   Vice-president confirms Arsenal have completed £10m deal to sign 6’4 star

Vice-president confirms Arsenal have completed £10m deal to sign 6’4 star

By on June 23, 2020

pablo mari arsenal

Flamengo vice-president Marcos Braz has confirmed Arsenal have signed Pablo Mari on a permanent basis in a deal that’s worth a total of £14.5m, according to reports via TeamTalk.

Mari was signed by Arsenal from Flamengo on an initial six-month loan back in January after Calum Chambers was ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee ligament injury.

The centre-back had to wait until early March to make his debut when he impressed during an FA Cup win over Portsmouth and kept his place for the Premier League win over West Ham before football was suspended.

Mari then started during Arsenal’s defeat to Man City when football returned last week but the 6ft 4in defender was stretchered off with a serious ankle injury and is expected to be ruled out for the rest of the season.

However, despite making just two-and-a-half appearances for the club, it looks like Mari did enough to impress Mikel Arteta as Coluna Do Fla reported over the weekend that Arsenal had activated their option to sign him on a permanent basis.

The Brazilian outlet said that Arsenal already paid £4.5m for the loan fee back in January and will now pay an additional £10m to make the move permanent, meaning the entire deal will cost us around £14.5m.

The news has now been confirmed by Flamengo as their vice-president Marcos Braz has said Mari has been sold. Braz is quoted by TeamTalk as telling ESPN at a press conference:

“Pablo Mari was sold, in fact. There is no doubt about it. We know that he suffered a serious injury, but that matter is already resolved and when the right moment comes, the numbers will come out on the club’s balance sheets.”

If true, I pray we did the deal BEFORE Mari’s injury. Otherwise it’s reckless business from Arsenal at a time when we cannot afford to throw money at a player who is facing months on the sidelines.

He did reasonably well in his two games before the break but it wasn’t enough to prove he’s worth signing on a permanent basis so I’d even be surprised if we opted to activate the option weeks ago.

However, if we did it after his injury then it’s crazy from Arsenal. We have limited funds and desperately need to strengthen throughout the squad so it’s dead money putting £10m into Mari when he could be out for 6 months.

Let’s hope we get some luck and his injury isn’t as serious as is being reported, otherwise, we’re left paying the wages for another player to sit on the treatment table.