According to Brazilian football reporter Andre Hernan (via Hammers News), Sao Paulo centre-back Luizao will join West Ham on a free transfer in January after signing a pre-contract agreement with the London club.
The Brazilian club’s manager Rogerio Ceni had admitted earlier that Luizao will leave the club in January with his next destination now set to be London.
West Ham were desperate to sign him in January and according to Brazilian outlet Gazetae Sportiva. they even offered the club ‘15% of a future transfer plus €1m in performance bonuses’ but the offer ‘was not accepted’ by the club who were seeking more money for him. Brazilian journalist Marcelo Baseggio said (as quoted by Gazetae Sportiva via West Ham Zone):
“The West Ham representative who conducted the negotiation stopped being answered by the São Paulo board. The proposal of São Paulo to maintain 15% of Luizão’s economic rights, in addition to receiving 1 million euros, if the player reached goals stipulated in the contract, was not accepted.”
“Thus, there was no other option for Luizão than to sign a pre-contract with West Ham, without any financial compensation to São Paulo, to transfer to English football at the end of his link with Tricolor.
“The pre-contract formulated by West Ham is under analysis by the legal department of Luizão’s staff. The expectation is that the defender will sign the documents in the coming days to sacrament his transfer.”
This left the player with no choice but to sign a pre-contract agreement with the club which will see him join West Ham once his contract with the Sao Paulo ends in January.
However, according to the latest update from Jovem Pan journalist Gabriel Sá, the player ‘should have his farewell from So Paulo on Sunday’ due to the ‘advanced negotiation’ with West Ham.
Despite the positive update from the journalist, it is still unclear whether Sao Paulo will force him to stay until the end of his contract or if he’ll be allowed to travel to England before then.
Technically he will be free to join them once his contract with the club expires which is end of January but because the negotiations between the two clubs turned sour, they could force the player to stay with the club until the end of his contract which would then mean that David Moyes will have to wait till end January for the player to join the club.