Pedro Porro has completed his long-touted move to Tottenham from Sporting, with the right-back joining on loan before the €45m (£39.7m) transfer is made permanent in the summer.
Negotiations have been back and forth since the start of January and have not been straightforward, the complications including how to factor in the solidarity payments to Porro’s previous clubs and the structure of the deal, with Spurs not keen to pay up front.
The breakthrough came on Monday night, which allowed Porro to travel to London to undergo his medical. Spurs are obliged to pay the money owing to Sporting on 1 July; €45m was the value of the buyout clause in Porro’s contract. It is understood the clause came to be inactive towards the end of January.
Antonio Conte, the Spurs manager, had identified right wing-back where he most wanted to upgrade and the club have cleared the decks for Porro’s arrival by terminating Matt Doherty’s contract, allowing him to join Atlético Madrid, and loaning Djed Spence to Rennes until the end of the season. Conte’s remaining option at right wing-back is Emerson Royal.
Porro has excelled since joining Sporting from Manchester City, initially on loan in 2020 before the deal was made permanent for €8.5m last summer. He was a key part of the team that won the Portuguese title in 2020-21, the club’s first such success in 19 years.
The Spurs chairman, Daniel Levy, has been under pressure from frustrated fans – some of whom have called for him to step down at recent matches – and he came to feel he had to back the more popular Conte, even though the manager has not committed to the club beyond the end of the season.
Levy sanctioned the loan signing of the forward Arnaut Danjuma from Villarreal last week – Spurs have an option to make the deal permanent in the summer – and that allowed them to loan Bryan Gil to Sevilla. Conte has long questioned whether Gil had the physicality to succeed in the Premier League. Danjuma is more robust.
Spurs signed Gil from Sevilla in the summer of 2021 for £21.6m, a deal that took Érik Lamela in the opposite direction. When they loaned Gil to Valencia in January of last year, it led Conte to suggest the purchase had been a mistake and the club were making too many of them in the market.
Spence was signed for an initial £12.5m from Middlesbrough last summer and has played five minutes of Premier League football in four substitute appearances.
