Kalinic to meet with Tianjin officials tomorrow in London

Okay, here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. Fiorentina have agreed to sell Nikola Kalinic to Tianjin Quanjian for €45 million. With all the kinks ironed out between the clubs, now there just remains the small matter of convincing the player himself that the move is in his best interests, and the Chinese outfit will make their case to the player in person tomorrow in London.

The main sales pitch is expected to be the €15 million salary that Nikola would receive for his move to the Super League, but that’s clearly not enough to pry him away from Florence. It’s believed that he also wants assurances from Croatia boss Ante Cacic that the move won’t result in his exile from the national team setup.

There’s a pretty good chance, then, that we’ll be able to close the book on this outrageous saga in the next day or so. Honestly, the Viola come out looking alright no matter how it ends: if Kalinic agrees to the move, Corvino has a huge amount of cash to sink into repairing a deeply broken squad. If the striker refuses the offer, then he’ll return to Florence and continue his push for 20 goals this season.