Although Roma announced on Monday that they have secured the signature of Malcom, talented Brazilian winger from Bordeaux, the player somehow ended in Barcelona. La Liga giants have confirmed that Malcom is, in fact, their player, introducing the 21-year-old on Tuesday.
🗣 #EnjoyMalcom 🔵🔴 pic.twitter.com/GRhCZq7YLa
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) July 24, 2018
The background of the story is that Roma offered around $40 million to Bordeaux for Malcom, and received permission to enter the contract negotiations with the player. After the deal was already done, Barcelona swooped in and offered $47 million, causing Bordeaux to stop Malcom’s transfer to Roma.
“We had an agreement with Rome, then Bordeaux blocked us,” – Malcom’s agent Fernando Garcia told Real Sport.
Although Roma matched Barcelona’s offer, the battle for the player’s signature became a bidding war, causing the Italian team to give up.
“What happened with Malcolm is easy to explain, but difficult to understand as we’d found an agreement with the agent, the player and Bordeaux.” – explained the situation Roma’s director Monchi. “I informed our president (when things changed), and he asked me to push forward and make a new offer that was better than Barca. Pallotti decided to make the best offer possible but when the negotiation became an auction we decided to withdraw.”
Malcom started his professional career with Corinthians, playing in 51 games and scoring seven goals. This brought him a transfer to Bordeaux in January 2016, where he impressed in the past two and a half years. He played 84 games in France in total and scored 20 goals.
