Chelsea has agreed to an agreement to pay around £33 million to acquire Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli.
Kalidou Koulibaly set to join Chelsea
A four-year deal worth about £160,000 per week (£8.2 million a year) net plus bonuses was agreed to by the Senegalese central defender, who has 62 caps, and Stamford Bridge. To join his new teammates on their preseason tour of the United States, he took a flight to Las Vegas on Friday.
Following the £47.5 million acquisition of Raheem Sterling from Manchester City, Koulibaly, who was also intriguing to Juventus, was signed by Napoli with just one year remaining on his deal.
Koulibaly opened up on it. And he said that he is very happy to be here with hus team at Chelsea. He added that It’s a big team in the world and my dream was always to play in the Premier League. Chelsea came first to get him in 2016 but we didn’t make it. Now when they came to him, he accepted it because they really wanted me to come to the Premier League to play for them.
The only senior fullbacks left in Thomas Tuchel’s side are Thiago Silva, Trevoh Chalobah, and Malang Sarr after the Blues lost Antonio Rudiger to Real Madrid and Andreas Christensen to Barcelona this summer in free transfers.
Since coming from Belgian club Genk eight years ago, Koulibaly, 31, has earned over 300 games for the Serie A club. He has been named to the Serie A team of the year four times and was awarded the finest defender in Italy in 2019.
Chelsea are still interested in Nathan Ake of Manchester City, Jules Kounde of Sevilla, Josko Gvardiol of RB Leipzig, and Presnel Kimpembe of Paris Saint-Germain.
The Blues are also interested in Matthijs de Ligt of Juventus, although he supposedly wants to go to Bayern Munich.