Parma have drawn their line in the sand: €25 million, or Alessandro Circati stays. Juventus and AC Milan both want the 22-year-old Socceroos centre-back, and neither Italian giant is going to get him cheap.
Transfer reporter Ekrem Manour — who covers moves for The Sun, Caught Offside and Hooligan Soccer — reports both clubs have made contact with Parma, who've priced their vice-captain accordingly. That fee would shatter Australia's transfer record, which has stood at $25m since Leicester bought Harry Souttar after the 2022 World Cup.
A World Cup campaign that changed everything
Circati's stock didn't come from nowhere. He was a consistent performer during Parma's promotion push in 2023/24, then held his own in Serie A over the two seasons that followed. But it was his World Cup showing for Australia — at the tournament hosted across the United States and Canada — that put him on Europe's radar in a serious way.
Atletico Madrid, Newcastle and even Champions League holders PSG were all linked. His father and co-agent Gianfranco told football360.com.au last month the market is "buzzing" for his son, while being careful to manage expectations: "Ale has a contract until 2029 and is very happy where he is, so we're not in a hurry."
That's the smart play. Parma hold the leverage here. Earlier reports had the fee sitting around $32m — Parma have since decided that number wasn't high enough.
For context on just how significant €25m is in Australian football terms: the record it would break was only set three years ago, and it's already about to be eclipsed twice over in the same transfer window. Lucas Herrington, the third member of Australia's World Cup centre-back trio at just 18, is on his way to newly promoted Hull in a deal worth £17 million — itself set to become the new benchmark before Circati's move potentially surpasses it.
Two Australian centre-backs breaking the national transfer record in the same summer. The Socceroos' defensive unit from that World Cup has become one of the most commercially valuable in the country's football history.
Whether Juventus or Milan wins the race will likely come down to which club can offer the more convincing project. Juventus are rebuilding with a longer-term vision; Milan are chasing relevance at the top of Serie A. Circati, at 22 and already commanding €25m, fits the profile both clubs are hunting — young, proven at the top flight level, and with his best years clearly ahead of him.
Arsenal rejected, Chelsea spending, Torres unsettled — the rest of the window in brief
Elsewhere, Arsenal's opening bid for Newcastle midfielder Bruno Guimaraes has been knocked back, though talks between the clubs are now direct. The Telegraph reports £70-80m may be enough to get the deal done, well short of Newcastle's initial near-£100m demand — and analyst Julian Laurens expects it to go through within weeks. Guimaraes has already told Newcastle he wants to leave, which rarely ends well for the selling club's negotiating position.
Chelsea signed Jordan Henderson from Brentford on a two-year deal, reuniting the 36-year-old with his England connections after stints at Liverpool, Al-Ettifaq and Ajax. He joins a squad already bolstered by Morgan Rogers (a British-record £117m from Aston Villa), Maxence Lacroix and Marco Palestra under new manager Xabi Alonso. Chelsea finished 10th last season and missed Europe entirely — the rebuild is ambitious, but £117m on one player while finishing tenth is the kind of gamble that shapes a club's finances for years.
And at Barcelona, Ferran Torres may be heading for the exit. Coach Hansi Flick acknowledged publicly that the club need to "do something" in attack after losing Lewandowski and Rashford, and admitted Torres's future is uncertain. The Spaniard, who scored the winner in the World Cup final against Argentina, has one year left on his deal and PSG are circling. "I have a contract at Barcelona but in football you never know," Torres said on NBC — which is about as close to a farewell as players get before officially requesting a move.
