Tomori, Leao swap or a €31.2m fee – the options for AC Milan to make loan deal permanent | OneFootball

Joao Felix has had a great start to life in Milan after moving to AC from Chelsea on loan on deadline day.

On his debut, just days after arriving, he scored his first goal, drinking a lovely finish over the keeper after being played in by fellow new man Santiago Gimenez.

Last night he played a key role in their win over Empoli, starting the game and helping them to a 2-0 win.

So far, so good. There’s already been talk from Milan about making the deal permanent, although despite the positive words from their sporting director, we wondered how they could afford the Portuguese. We spent more than £45m on him, and we can’t see us accepting a loss a year on.

Milan just don’t spend that sort of money these days. Even if he bags 10 goals between now and the end of the season, it’s not happening.

Multiple options on the table for “friendly clubs”

Fikayo Tomori in action for AC Milan.

But Italian source CalcioMercato has insisted on another possible route – a swap deal. These are usually not even worth considering as they’re so rare. But given Milan have players we may want, and we have a player they want, and both of us want to avoid big cash pay

It wouldn’t have to be arranged as a direct swap – more of an agreement to buy each player at a set price. That’s pretty much how we got ourselves into this Felix mess, buying him so that Atletico Madrid had the money to buy Conor Gallagher from us and we can both count ourselves as in the green from an accounting point of view.

Rafael Leao and Fikayo Tomori are both names mentioned as potential swaps. The other solution mentioned is another loan, with the loan fee and future purchase clause set at a level which ensure we don’t make a loss (they claim we’d need to receive €31.2m at that point to avoid a loss).

Given both are “friendly clubs” after doing so much business together, it all seems very possible.