Report: Long-running transfer saga nears its conclusion as Blues agree a fee for young ace

Well, by the sounds of it, that should be that.

One of the longest-running transfer sagas in the history of Birmingham City looks set to come to an end, although I don’t think that all sides are really going to be happy with it all.

According to a report from ESPN, Borussia Dortmund have ‘won the race’ to sign Jude Bellingham with the club expected to announce that the deal has been completed within the coming days. Now as we know, for example in the case of Robinho to Man City, nothing is officially official until the player puts pen to paper and the official pictures of him in a scarf/shirt are released.

Although even in the case of Daniel James to Leeds, even that might not make the deal official, but for all intents and purposes, it looks like we can finally put this to bed.

The only thing that is perhaps ‘new’ news in regard the transfer is how low the fee is, with the report claiming that Bellingham will make the move for around £20m, a huge drop down from the £30m that was floating around when it came to his price tag.

Now there were reports a few days ago suggesting that Dortmund could be in some financial problems given the current climate of global football, but it does seem odd that the Blues would be willing to settle for such a cut-price (even though it would still be the club’s record transfer sale) on the 16-year-old.

Maybe it was a case of them ‘blinking’ first when it came to the negotiations, or perhaps £20m was their initial valuation and Dortmund got lucky with it. I’m sure the details will come out at some point in the future, but for now, it looks like we can finally put the whole thing to bed.

What about you? Do you think that the club were right to only accept £20m for him?