Torino have offered to make Andrea Belotti the best-paid player in the club’s history to put an end to speculation linking the Euro 2020 winner with Premier League giants Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, according to Gazzetta dello Sport.
After finishing 17th in the Serie A table last season, life without their talismanic top scorer doesn’t bare thinking about.
Despite only arriving from Palermo in 2015, battering ram Belotti is already the seventh highest goalscorer in Torino’s entire existence, hitting double figures in each of the last six league seasons.
But, with his contract expiring in the summer of 2022, Il Granata are facing up to an impossible dilemma.
Do they sell their best player, their leader and their go-to goalscorer, or let him depart for absolutely nothing 12 months later?
Will Italy’s Andrea Belotti swap Serie A for the Premier League?
Tuttosport reported in June that Arsenal are interested in the £30 million-rated Belotti, with North London neighbours Tottenham also long-time admirers of a man who played back-up to Ciro Immobile as Italy conquered the continent.
And, in a last-ditch attempt to secure Belotti’s future, Torino are understood to have offered him a new deal worth around £65,000-a-week.
That, it is believed, would make Belotti the best-paid player in Torino’s 114-year history (Gianluca di Marzio).
“Now, the player is on vacation. When he comes back, we will talk to him,” says president Urbano Cairo.
“At the moment, let’s leave him alone. We made him a very important offer. If he doesn’t accept the offer, we will evaluate other things.
“Let’s see what happens.”
£65,000-a-week may be a bank-busting sum to Torino but not to clubs as well-endowed as Arsenal or Tottenham.
The likes of Cedric Soares, Pablo Mari, Eric Dier and Matt Doherty are reported to earn more than that in the Premier League (Spotrac).
“We had a chat with Tottenham but Belotti is too important for us,” sporting director Davide Vagnati said last year.
“I’d love to see Belotti stay at Torino for the rest of his career.”
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