Tottenham Hotspur staff were spotted with one of new signing Guglielmo Vicario's agents as they awaited the Italian goalkeeper's arrival at Stansted Airport.
The Empoli goalkeeper is set to sign for Spurs for a reported fee of €19million (£16.3million) with the 26-year-old having starred in Serie A for the past two years and been a member of Roberto Mancini's Italy squad. football.london reported this week that Fabio Paratici, who is still involved on a consultancy basis with the north London club, had long been an admirer of Vicario, along with chief scout Leonardo Gabbanini, and had made enquires about the shot-stopper's availability earlier this year.
One eagle-eyed Tottenham fan spotted at the airport the north London club's multi-lingual player liaison officer Roberto Balbontin and Allan Dixon, who used to be a player liaison officer for years but now has the title of team manager, and can often be seen holding up the substitution board during matches.
The duo were photographed at Stansted and those with an even better knowledge of the European game might have noticed one of Vicario's agents, Valerio Giuffrida, co-founder of the GG11 agency, among those they were sat speaking to as they waited for the goalkeeper to emerge through the arrivals area.
Vicario will complete the final details of his move before being unveiled as a Tottenham signing, with the hope that he will become the long-term successor to Hugo Lloris, who admitted he wants to leave the club for a new challenge this summer.
Inter, Juventus, Napoli, Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Brighton have all been credited with an interest in Vicario in recent months. After exploring a move for Brentford's David Raya, Spurs had to move fast for Vicario due to the widespread belief that Inter were set to approach Empoli for the goalkeeper to make him their new number one if their stopper Andre Onana moves this summer, with United and Chelsea interested in the Cameroonian.
Inter have now been credited with an interest in Lloris as a potential replacement if Onana does move on.
Here is one of the images of the Stansted Airport meeting, tweeted by TottenhamAll, that has spread across social media.
