Cassano negotiations underway says Galliani

Milan and Sampdoria are in negotiations over the transfer of Antonio Cassano, Milan’s vice-president Adriano Galliani admitted yesterday.

Italy forward Cassano has been frozen out at Samp since allegedly “gravely insulting” club president Riccardo Garrone in an argument in October.

On Thursday an arbitration body rejected Sampdoria’s bid to have the 28-year-old’s contract terminated, although they did suspend him until the end of January and reduce his salary by half.

However, Garrone had already made it clear that Cassano would never play for the club again whatever the outcome of the arbitration.

And Galliani has now admitted that negotiations “are well under way but absolutely not concluded.”

The stumbling block is a five million euro payment Sampdoria owe to Real Madrid, from whom they bought the forward.

“That’s the problem,” Galliani told Sky Italia. “We’re not willing to pay it and for the moment Sampdoria don’t seem to be either, hence there’s still a nice little problem to solve.

“Let’s say two out of three things are practically done: the agreement with the player and the one with Sampdoria but we have five million reasons to worry about this thing.”

Ronaldinho departure

However, Galliani denied that Cassano’s expected arrival would signal the departure of Brazilian former twice world player of the year Ronaldinho.

Instead he insisted that Cassano would merely replace Filippo Inzaghi, who has a knee injury and is due to miss the rest of the season.

“Even if Cassano obviously has very different characteristics he will replace Pippo Inzaghi.

“We began the season with five strikers and we need to go back to having five.

“It’s nothing to do with Ronaldinho, Cassano will arrive, if he arrives, but we’re not saying it’s a done deal.”