Genoa have announced that Serie A champions AC Milan have bought a 50 per cent stake in 18-year-old attacker Stephan El Shaarawy for a fee of €10 million.

The midfielder has only made three appearances in the Italian top flight, and Genoa president Enrico Preziosi explained to Il Corriere Mercantile that the club were powerless to reject such a lucrative bid.

"Their bid surprised me. I really did not expect it at all. The Rossoneri valued him at €20m, which translates to €10m for a 50% share in him now."

"The value of his other half can increase as well if he does well. Overall, it is a deal worth €25m and I just could not say no."

El Shaarawy, who spent the 2010-11 season on loan at Serie B side Padova, had already made his desire to play for Massimiliano Allegri's men clear, telling Sky Sport 24 that he supported the seven-time European champions as a boy.

Genoa will receive a talented midfielder of their own in the shape of 19-year-old Alexander Merkel, who broke into the Milan first XI for a period last season. Genoa will become joint-owners of the young German.

"I have read that we will pay €1.3m for Merkel but that is not the case. He will cost us €5m because Milan value him at €10m. He is very young but he is also ready to play in the league."

El Shaarawy scored nine goals in 30 games for Padova last season on their way to the play-off final, while Merkel appeared 10 times for the Rossoneri, scoring once.

Ganso wrote:hes valued at 20M but were paying 10

OLpower wrote:That's stupid these story of buying share of a players.

If one club has 50 and the other 50, where does he play? Who decides why?

B-Mac MUFC wrote:I see that the English clubs are not the only ones who pay inflated prices for English talent

3 appearances and rated at 20m....we payed 16.5 for Jones a 19 year old starting XI CB in the Prem who made 35 appearances.....20m for 3 appearances is steep! but you likely get a player who will never wanna leave your club which is the bonus

The midfielder has only made three appearances in the Italian top flight, and Genoa president Enrico Preziosi explained to Il Corriere Mercantile that the club were powerless to reject such a lucrative bid.

milanista99 wrote:

B-Mac MUFC wrote:I see that the English clubs are not the only ones who pay inflated prices for English talent

3 appearances and rated at 20m....we payed 16.5 for Jones a 19 year old starting XI CB in the Prem who made 35 appearances.....20m for 3 appearances is steep! but you likely get a player who will never wanna leave your club which is the bonus

3 appearances? LOL you clearly know nothing about him.

Doc wrote:Off topic, has Zlatan signed for Milan yet? If I missed it, just send the link here or something?!

milanista99 wrote:

The midfielder has only made three appearances in the Italian top flight, and Genoa president Enrico Preziosi explained to Il Corriere Mercantile that the club were powerless to reject such a lucrative bid.

milanista99 wrote:

B-Mac MUFC wrote:I see that the English clubs are not the only ones who pay inflated prices for English talent

3 appearances and rated at 20m....we payed 16.5 for Jones a 19 year old starting XI CB in the Prem who made 35 appearances.....20m for 3 appearances is steep! but you likely get a player who will never wanna leave your club which is the bonus

3 appearances? LOL you clearly know nothing about him.

your right i don't know anything about him, but the article said hes only made 3 appearances in top flight which is what i was clearly comparing to us paying 16.5m for a player with 35 appearances in top flight

im not taking the piss im just comparing inflation prices for homegrown talent quit your whining

vu wrote:has anyone actually read preziosis words or are you all just refer to the headline...?

all preziosi said is that currently they value el shaarawy at 20m and that this deal could
be worth ~25m in the future if the pharaoh performs well, which would
increase his value + our current valuation of merkel is 10m (which is
absolutely insane btw), which means that theoretically were paying 10m
for half of the pharaoh...

but the truth is, were paying 5.5m +
half of merkels contract for a co-ownership of el shaarawy. so actually,
the final prices of both merkel and shaarawy depend on how well they
progress... we may end up selling our half of shaarawy and pay another
10m to get merkel back... who knows?!!

anyway, my opinion on this
transfer: is 5.5m + half of merkel (valued at 5m) too much? it slightly
is cause i dont think that el shaarawy showed enough to justify this
price. he has potential though and preziosi could be right and shaarawy
could become a fantastic player and well end up paying another 15m for
his full rights... only then well all say that hes worth the money.

so
genoa didnt really ripped us off. weve made a 5m investment on a
potentially world class player. only time will tell whether its a good
investment...