Arsenal's stunning €11m revelation from transfer called a 'hell of a deal'
Robin Bairner
- 9 Sept 2023 10:40 BST
- 4 min read
Arsenal may have thought they had seen the last of Nicolas Pepe following his move to Super Lig side Trabzonspor, but the €80 million signing continues to haunt the north London club.
Pepe left Arsenal for Trabzonspor on a free transfer on Friday following a disappointing spell at the club that began in 2019 when he arrived for what was a club-record fee from Lille.
He went on to play 112 times for the Gunners, scoring 27 goals and creating 21 more, but he was never in Mikel Arteta’s plans and was offloaded in an unceremonious manner to Turkey this week.
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Arsenal, though, continue to be hampered by Pepe’s massive transfer fee, with the Gunners still having an outstanding payment of more than €10m to make for the winger.
The agreement that Arteta’s side made when the deal was struck in 2019 was that Arsenal would pay Lille an upfront fee of around €22m, with the remaining instalments worth €58m to be paid over the course of five seasons, according to the Daily Mail.
This means that the Emirates side still have €11.6m to pay to Lille for Pepe’s services.
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Arsenal might have paid more for Pepe
Arsenal might have had been strongarmed into paying even more for Pepe had he not been so determined to join the club.
When they were bidding for him, Lille revealed there was an offer for €92m from Napoli for the winger, according to Football.London.
“No, Arsenal did one hell of a deal," former Lille owner Gerard Lopez told talkSPORT. “They got a player that other people wanted and they got a player whom one club were offering more money for. It was Pepe's management team that asked us to go to Arsenal and so we accepted slightly less money than we would have got somewhere else.
“Some people know that, I know publicly some agents have said that but something that needs to go on record – we didn’t sell him to the highest bidder.”
Even if it seemed a bargain at the time, losing Pepe on a free transfer is a bitter blow to Arsenal.
