Piero Hincapie’s permanent transfer was reportedly pre-agreed last summer, despite the defender technically only joining Arsenal on an initial loan deal.
Football insider Hand of Arsenal reports that during talks last summer it was pre-agreed that Piero Hincapie will become a permanent Arsenal player upon the completion of this season’s loan spell.
Personal terms are in place on a five-year permanent deal, and Hincapie will move onto that deal at the end of the current campaign.
The structure of the deal as an initial loan was purely for accounting purposes, as was reported last summer.
With both Hincapie’s loan to Arsenal and Jakub Kiwior’s loan to FC Porto, the Gunners came up with a creative way to ensure that all three clubs could feel confident that the deals would go through, without including formal obligations that would require the transfers to be accounted for this season.
Given Arsenal, Porto, and Bayer Leverkusen all wanted to account for the deals next summer, a normal obligation wasn’t suitable.
Instead, they agreed that both clubs involved in each deal would hold options to make the deal permanent. Meaning that if Arsenal activate their option for Hincapie, Leverkusen can’t stop the deal going through, and if Leverkusen activate the option, Arsenal can’t stop it either.
Technically, this leaves open the possibility that neither club activate the option, and that uncertainty means it can’t be accounted for this year.
But in reality, if Hincapie does well, Arsenal would activate the option to tie him down, and if he doesn’t, Leverkusen would activate it to cash in on him.
So there was never much doubt that Hincapie would ultimately become an Arsenal player. The good news is that he’s looking like a good signing right now, impressing again in midweek in his 17th Premier League start of the campaign.
The Gunners’ hard work to get the deal done on terms that suited all parties seems to be paying off.