Fulham are close to completing the signing of Brazilian striker Rodrigo Munez from Flamengo, according to reports this evening.
O Dia journalist Vene Casagrande reports that Fulham chief executive Alistair Mackintosh made contact with the Flamengo board this afternoon to finalise the details of the transfer. The structure of the deal to bring the 20 year-old to Craven Cottage on a permanent basis appears to be an approximate £3.4m up front free followed by a second instalment of around £3.4m. Flamengo will also be entitled to around 20% of any future sale of the youngster. Mackintosh’s intervention appears to have assured the Brazilian side’s board – and the transfer could be completed as early as tomorrow.
The influence of new Fulham manager Marco Silva also appears pivotal in convincing Muniz to pick the London club ahead of Middlesbrough, who also submitted a bid to Flamengo for the forward. Muniz is understood to have been impressed that Silva telephoned the young striker personally to talk through his ideas for his progress at Fulham and suggesting that he could repeat the sort of progress Richarlison made in English football when Silva signed him for Watford.
Muniz, who broke into the Flamengo first team as they clinched the Brazilian title last year, is believed to have verbally agreed a five-year contract at Craven Cottage and would initially be an understudy to Aleksandar Mitrovic, whom Silva described as Fulham’s ‘key player’ this afternoon in his first press conference as the club’s head coach.
Interesting that Mackintosh appears to be well and truly back in the mix re transfers.
He, according to Silva, was instrumental in his decision to become our new manager too.
If things continue in this vein, I, for one, will not have any complaints as, for the first time in quite a while, we appear to be conducting decent business in the market well ahead of the season starting.
In my opinion, Muniz is not coming to play an understudy role. Silva, by all accounts, has really put the pressure on the hierarchy to make this signing happen. So there is no way that he will be sitting on the bench.
Rather, I see him complementing Mitrovic (and, from the sound of it, a fit, fired up, slimmed down version of the Mitro that we know and love) in a partnership designed to cause fear and havoc in Championship defences this season.
Can’t wait!
Well done Fulham in getting the deal done. I would also like to say as a
lifelong supporter that I hope this will be the start of a new era for the
club in regard to communication with its supporters. We all know that
things have to be kept under wraps until the deal is done but the cluibs
supporters should be the first to know once the deal is done. Most of us
are also aware that releasing the information for the most advantage is a
consideration but without the supporters behind the club and feeling
left out as the media is prioritised is wrong.