According to several reports out of Brazil and the ever-reliable Jack Long via Twitter, Chelsea have won the bidding for 17 year-old Brazilian prodigy Lucas Piazon. Steve will be in later to give you more detail about our newest acquisition, but what I can tell you right now is that he's a very highly regarded attacking midfield/forward prospect. He's also very expensive:
So Chelsea have bought 17-year-old striker Lucas Piazon from #SãoPauloFC. The fee is €6.2million.
Jack Lang
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The fee was later revised upwards to more accurately represent the money going to the agent and the player, so it sounds like Chelsea have dropped somewhere closer to €8M on Piazon, which is an awful lot of money for such a young player - he hasn't even featured for Sao Paulo's first team! According to the Guardian, this is a fairly standard pre-contract agreement (albeit for a lot of money) and he will join the team after his 18th birthday.
Although he's considered to be a very interesting talent, Piazon is not at the same sort of level as the likes of Neymar and probably won't be ready to join the first team for some time. He also would need to get a work permit to play professionally in England, and since he's not a first-choice international that's hardly a straightforward process. We'll see what becomes of him, though - he's certainly a player to watch, and now we all have a reason to tune into the South American U-17 championships, where Piazon is featuring for Brazil.