Palermo are open to offers for Argentine midfielder Javier Pastore, who wants to leave the Serie A club.Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester City are just some of the sides linked with a move for the exciting prospect, who turns 22 on June 20.
Pastore, currently on international duty with Argentina as they prepare for the Copa America, joined Palermo from Huracan in 2009 for approximately five million euros.
“I feel that the time to leave Palermo has arrived,” Pastore told Fox Sports Radio Del Plata.
The club’s owner Maurizio Zamparini will reportedly demand a transfer fee of close to 50 million euros for a player who has made 69 appearances since his arrival from Argentina’s Primera League.
“Pastore is the only player who could leave. It all depends on the boy,” Zamparini told Sky Sport 24.
“He earns less than one million euros and if a big club offered him four million euros then it would be hard to keep him.”
“Palermo can’t afford that and we have to balance the books.”
“I’ve almost resigned myself to losing him. He speaks to his agent more than he speaks to me and the big clubs want him.”
“It is only logical that he could stay here for just one more season anyway. If he did then it would be with great pressure and it would no longer be the same Pastore.”
While Italian giants Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan, together with Napoli, have all been linked with moves for Pastore, Zamparini believes the player’s future lies away from Serie A.
“I think he is too expensive for the Napoli of my friend Aurelio De Laurentiis,” Zamparini said.
“It will be difficult for the Italian sides to net him. Foreign clubs have bigger transfer budgets.”
“The Spanish game is the one that will suit the talents of Pastore. Real Madrid would only sign him if they sold Kaka.”
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