Real striker Negredo to sign for Sevilla: press

Real Madrid striker Alvaro Negredo has ended weeks of speculation about his future and agreed to join Primera Liga rivals Sevilla, Spanish sporting dailies said Thursday.

The 23-year-old was last month linked with Tottenham and then more recently with Hull City and Zenit St Petersburg and finally with newly promoted Spanish side Zaragoza.

The Marca newspaper said Sevilla, which qualified for this season’s European Champions League by finishing third behind Barcelona and Real, will pay 15 million euros (21 million dollars) for the player, who is set to sign a four-year contract later Thursday.

It said the club will have an option to buy back the striker for 18 million euros in the first year and 21 million in the second.

Another paper, AS, put the transfer fee at 14 million euros with a buy-back option of 17 million over the two seasons.

Spanish media said earlier this week that Hull was ready to meet Real’s terms of an 18-million-euro transfer fee plus a two-year buy-back clause worth 25 million euros.

But Negredo wanted to remain in Spain, and Real was ready to let him.

He was then on the point of moving to Zaragoza before Sevilla made a final effort to sign him, Marca said.

Negredo scored 19 goals in Spain’s Primera Liga last season, when he played for Almeria. Real then exercised a buy-back option on him during the close season.

Real president Florentino Perez has splashed out over 250 million euros on the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema since he returned to the club in June in a bid to make the nine-times European champions a formidable force again.

But he is now seeking to offload a number of players to recoup some of the massive outlay.