AC Milan appear to have resolved their final doubts regarding Matija Popović who will soon be registered as a free agent, according to reports.
According to what is being reported by Fabrizio Romano, Milan are ‘closing in’ on a deal to sign Popović on a free transfer after his contract with Partizan Belgrade in Serbia expired last month.
Popović has turned 18 yesterday and he can now sign his contract, with Milan ‘finally prepared to seal the deal’ after some deliberation over the non-EU status.
Manchester City tried to hijack the deal as per the journalist, but Milan have always been confident that they had the teenager’s approval and he should soon arrive in Italy.
Several sources had claimed last month that the club struck a deal with the forward and had to simply deposit his contract in order to get things over the line, but then doubts started to creep in.
It was claimed by various journalists that the deal had not been closed yet because management have not yet decided whether to deposit the contract of the Serbian striker or not.
The reasons for this are bureaucratic: he would occupy a position as a non-EU player, and we explained what that means in a recent feature.
Now, though, it seems those doubts have been resolved and Popovic will pen a long-term deal soon. We profiled him last month, with a more detail analysis to follow.
CdK type of player but at least he’s coming for free.
I don’t know the kid but if Man City wanted to hijack the deal and failed that’s music to my ears.
He looks extremely fast for his height, reminds me a bit of Ibrahimović from Ajax, before he gained more muscles. Hopefully he can get into senior football successfully and become a player…
He has not played since last season, due the fact he refused to sign a contract with Partizan.
So he will need at least the rest of the year with the Primavera.
I just hope he is not a trouble maker. Seems pretty extreme route to follow at such a young age. Being frozen out by your club at 17yo
Is he advised by the Raiola firm? These days those kinds of antics have been normalized, and they start doing them when they’re very young. Popovic is now to Partizan what Donnarumma is to us, except we had to keep on playing Gigio because he had already broken through to the first team.