Rumor: Fiorentina Made Two Offers for Sporting KC’s Busio

Alfredo Pedulla is reporting that Italian giants ACF Fiorentina have made multiple offers to pry Gianluca Busio away from Sporting Kansas City. The story comes on top of rumors last week that Busio was linked to Inter Milan (Italy) and Manchester United (England).

According to the story, Fiorentina made two offers between $3-4 million for Busio. That’s a sizable amount for the unproven 17-year-old. According to the story, Sporting KC have set the price at $10 million. In the past, the team has said $10 million isn’t even enough for Busio. I suspect the team will hold on to him to see if he can greatly increase his value in 2020.

Busio would be eligible to move abroad currently as he holds an Italian passport through his father. If not for that, he’d have to wait until he turns 18 (which he does on May 28th of 2020).

During the 2019 preseason, Busio told The Blue Testament that he wanted to be in Europe at some point.

“You can see that I’m in the same spot that Tyler Adams was two years ago,” Busio said to Daniel Sperry in 2019. “A 16-year-old, playing in MLS, getting a couple games in, and now he’s in the Bundesliga. I think of it as, why can’t that be me? Now teams are coming to MLS to look for younger players, so that’s exciting for me, really. Just knowing that teams are going to be looking, and I think I’m in a good spot right now, in a professional league, to show them what I can do.”

When TBT caught up with him in Arizona, he added to his above thoughts.

“I’m not going to say where I’m going to be in two years,” started Busio with a smile and a shrug. “I don’t know what could happen. Anything could happen... Definitely at some point, I want to be in Europe. That’s just my ambition as a soccer player to make it big in the Champions League and all that.”

While Sporting KC will inevitably sell Busio at some point, it seems the dollar amounts coming in are a bit too low for SKC right now. As his play continues to improve and his star continues to rise, the offers will likely get bigger and bigger until Sporting simply cannot say no.

If Champions League is the goal, Fiorentina may not be the destination as they haven’t made it there in quite a few years. Manchester United and Inter Milan on the other hand are frequent participants. As of right now though, if Busio went to those clubs, he’d likely struggle to break into the lineup and may end up out on loan.

The Blue Testament will bring you more on the offseason and Busio’s potential movement, as it unfolds.

Update: 11/18/2019 @ 4:35 PM CT

SBI Soccer shed some additional light on the potential transfer of Gianluca Busio. They clarified that Fiorentina has made one offer before the U-17 World Cup that was too low and they are preparing another offer. They also reported that Genoa (also in Serie A) is “preparing an offer.”

They reached out to Peter Vermes for comment as well.

“There’s been interest in him for the past 18 months, and I knew it would pick back up, but it’s not something we’re rushing into by any means,” Vermes said. “Is there interest? Sure, there’s a lot of interest from a lot of different people at the moment, but we’re not in any rush to make a deal. It’s really simple.”

PV declined to tell SBI what an acceptable fee would be but he confirmed Fiorentina’s initial offer was nowhere close to anything Sporting KC would consider. The above-mentioned $10 million figure came up again.

SBI also confirmed information that was new to me in that Liverpool and Wolverhampton Wanderers have come to scout Busio in person.

This clearly won’t be the last Busio to Europe rumor and they’ll be ongoing until he’s been sold.