22-year-old dropped from Chelsea's Europa Conference League squad.
According to the Evening Standard, Chelsea have a verbal agreement in place to sign Ecuadorian wonderkid Kendry Paez, who currently plays for Independiente del Valle.
The midfielder, who is just 15 years old now, could join the Blues for a deal worth more than £17.5m if all performance-related add-ons are taken into account.
He obviously won’t be joining Chelsea until he turns 18, which will be around the summer of 2025. The club would hope to have the agreement legally formalised before that.
Along with the Blues, Manchester United and Borussia Dortmund were interested in signing Paez. But, it seems like we have outbid the other two in this transfer race.
The midfielder, who is more of a number 10, came into limelight after becoming an outstanding player at the Next Generation Trophy tournament in Austria in 2022.
He has represented the senior team of Independiente and scored on his senior debut in February as well. It is the same as when Brighton and Hove Albion signed Moises Caicedo from Independiente back in 2021.
If all the paperwork is formalised and confirmed, Paez would become another signing that defines the Todd Boehly era at Chelsea.
Under the American’s stewardship, we have seen the club focusing on signing top young players from various countries and handing them big contracts.
They are probably confident of nurturing those players here before either selling them on profit or making the best use of them in the senior team.
For now, though, Boehly has another important job, which is to find the replacement for Graham Potter. The latter was sacked on Sunday following Chelsea’s defeat at home to Aston Villa on Saturday.
Julian Nagelsmann seems to be the primary target, although the co-owners are concerned by his age (which is foolish to think).
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