Thursday, June 10, 2021 at 5:43 PM• Jeroen van Poppel

Internazionale is going for Emerson Royal as a replacement for Achraf Hakimi, assures Ginaluca Di Marzio. The Serie A champions are taking Hakimi’s departure so seriously that the club has already contacted Emerson’s agent. The latter was bought back by Barcelona at the beginning of June through an option for nine million euros from Real Betis.

Frederic Pena, Emerson’s agent, was a guest in Milan on Wednesday afternoon, Di Marzio knows. An exploratory conversation was held there about the future plans of the 22-year-old right wing defender and to gauge his interest in a transition. It indicates that Inter assumes that Hakimi will be sold. According to Fabrizio Romano, the Moroccan international is in the interest of Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. Both clubs do not want to go further than sixty million euros for the time being, while Inter wants eighty million euros.

Emerson will return as a Barcelona player on July 1. He was acquired in 2019 from Atlético Mineiro, which received more than twelve million euros for the transfer. Half of the transfer fee was paid for by Barcelona at the time, with Betis depositing the other six million euros. He was then kept on a rental basis at the club from Sevilla for two years. Barcelona negotiated the option to take over Emerson’s full transfer rights in 2021 for €9 million and it was recently taken advantage of. Emerson left Betis with 79 games to his name, scoring 5 goals and providing 10 assists.

Barcelona would be willing to cooperate in the direct resale of Emerson because of the financial difficulties. The Catalans must also transfer twenty percent of the transfer fee for the Brazilian to Real Betis. Barca also want to say goodbye to Junior Firpo, Philippe Coutinho, Samuel Umtiti, Miralem Pjanic and Martin Braithwaite in the summer.