Arsenal seal €73.5m Viktor Gyökeres deal after late-night breakthrough
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Deal for Sporting striker includes €10m in add-ons
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Arsenal poised to confirm Cristhian Mosquera signing
Arsenal have finally reached agreement with Sporting for the transfer of Viktor Gyökeres in a deal worth up to €73.5m (£63.7m), having resolved the problematic issue of the €10m of add-ons to end a tortuous saga and Mikel Arteta’s hunt for a No 9.
The north London club, who are poised to confirm the signing of the centre-half Cristhian Mosquera from Valencia for an initial €15m, made the official breakthrough late on Tuesday, sending an updated offer to their Portuguese counterparts to satisfy them over the structure of the bonuses. Sporting have wanted the add-ons to be achievable, based on appearances, goals and assists by Gyökeres plus Champions League qualification, whereas Arsenal had wanted to include some more difficult ones.
What is the longest gap between European top-flight football derbies? | The Knowledge
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Mail us with your questions and answers
“Paris FC’s promotion means that Paris will have its first Ligue 1 derby since 1978-79. Is there any European city that has had a longer gap between top-flight derbies?” queries Steve Whittaker from Frankfurt (which hasn’t had a top-flight derby in the Bundesliga era).
We’ve touched on this before, many years ago, when we found a 44-year gap between the meeting of Hertha Berlin and FC Union and a 48-year wait for FSV v Eintracht in Steve’s home city. However both derbies reconvened in the second tier and don’t count here. So it is well worth us having a drill down into some top-flight derby deserts. The 46-year wait for Paris bragging rights to be earned is indeed a long one, particularly for a capital city.
Valencia had no derby between Valencia and Levante in La Liga between 10 January 1965 and 8 January 2005 (40 years).
Berlin had no Bundesliga derby between 1977 (Hertha Berlin v Tennis Borussia Berlin) until 2019 (Hertha Berlin v Union Berlin – 42 years). There were Berlin derbies in the old East German league, but teams from West Berlin would not have been able to participate in those.
Cologne has no league derby since 1974 (FC Köln v Fortuna Köln) but those two did meet in the 1982 DFB Pokal Cup, but that doesn’t count. So the gap is active at 51 years.
Finally, Naples has never had a Serie A derby at all. To get close to one, you need to venture back to the pre-Serie A days of 1921 when the Italian Championship involved a series of mini-leagues leading to a final round-robin. In the last round before it entered the final phase in 1921, three teams from Naples played each other in a mini league – Bagnolese, Internazionale Napoli, and Naples Foot-Ball Club. Bagnolese have since dissolved, and the other two merged in 1926 to form what is now Napoli. So that could be 105 years and counting.