Hamburg have secured the midfielder after declining their original purchase option, with the eventual terms leaving Arsenal’s negotiating position open to scrutiny.
Fabio Vieira has completed a permanent move from Arsenal to Hamburger SV, ending his four-year association with the club after the Bundesliga side returned for him following last season’s loan spell.
The agreement is worth about €10 million, or £8.6 million, after Hamburg decided not to activate the €22 million purchase option contained in Vieira’s loan deal.
The German club instead continued negotiations, consistently offering a substantially lower figure and have ultimately secured the midfielder for the amount the said they would pay all summer.
There had been widespread doubt that HSV would pay the option amount at the time of the loan, and those doubts proved justified when the Bundesliga side declined to exercise the clause.
Hamburg nevertheless remained determined to keep Vieira and made clear that they wanted to pay no more than €10 million.
Initial indications from Arsenal were that they expected considerably more and intended to take a firm position in negotiations, but the final agreement has been struck at about €10 million.
The final structure of the transfer will determine how Arsenal’s negotiations are ultimately judged. If the agreement contains add-ons or a sell-on clause, those provisions could increase the value of the deal beyond the initial €10 million. It still won’t come close to that original option, however.
Without such extras, Arsenal have accepted essentially the figure Hamburg were prepared to offer earlier in the summer. That would represent a disappointing outcome for a club attempting to improve its record of extracting value from outgoing players.
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