Radosevic transfer to Napoli halted

Napoli’s move to sign Josip Radosevic has been delayed by a disagreement over the structure of the deal.

The Serie A side agreed a three-million-euro fee for the 18-year-old Croatian midfielder at the beginning of the week but his club Hajduk Split are unhappy with the instalment plan proposed by Napoli. Hajduk would prefer a larger percentage of the fee to be paid up front.

While the transfer, revealed by Goal.com on Tuesday, is expected to go through before the end of the window, there is a further complication caused by Hadjuk’s ownership structure.

As Hajduk are a joint-stock company and the transfer is worth more than 500,000 euros, the club’s president Marin Brbic requires five of the other nine board members to vote in favour of the sale for it to be fully ratified.

While the majority of the board are in favour of the transfer, all 10 members must sit down and vote each time a new offer has been made by the Naples club, causing extra delay.

Goal.com understands the board are close to agreeing a payment structure with Napoli.

Antonio Radosevic, the player’s brother and representative, said: “Josip is still in Croatia. The deal has not been completed formally but we are close to completing it. We will fly to Italy but at the moment, we don’t know when.”

With the transfer approaching completion, Antonio Radosevic stressed he remains his brother’s only representative amid some confusion in the media.

“Many people have announced recently that they are his (Josip’s) agent. Josip wants to state he has no official agent,” he said.

“An Italian gentleman has helped in negotiations but Josip has no manager, I am his only representative.”