We've known for some time that Romeu was going to be coming to Chelsea, the club has confirmed this morning that the deal has been completed. According to the release on the official website, Romeu will be joining the club on a four year deal. He's currently away in Colombia playing for Spain in the U20 World Cup and will join Chelsea in London upon Spain's completion of that tournament. For those of you not familiar, Romeu was profiled here. You'll be able to watch Romeu once the knockout rounds of the U20 tournament begins, but he will miss the last game of the group stage with accumulated yellows. He's been arguably the best player for the Spanish team to this point in the tourney.
Terms of the deal have not been officially released by the club, but the Catalan media seem to have the details of the signing. Chelsea have already paid the entire fee of £4.385 million to Barca, which is a real steal for a player of Oriol's ability. Barca have two options to buy the player back, either for £8.6 million at the end of this season or for £13 million at the end of 2013. All told, if we lose him back to Barca it will be a good bit of business for us anyway. With Javy Mascherano and Sergio Busquets in the fold, I really doubt that ends up being an issue (especially after 2012). I'd expect to see Romeu slotted into the reserves and providing cover for the holding midfielders on the first team.