Enzo Fernandez has reached a verbal agreement to join Real Madrid on a five-year contract, but the move still depends on Chelsea and Real Madrid agreeing a fee. Diogo Costa does not appear in the verified facts for this transfer, so the report centers on the midfielder instead.
Real Madrid and Enzo Fernandez
Gianluigi Longari said Real Madrid has a verbal agreement with Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez for a 5-year contract. He added that Chelsea do not want to let him go, while Fernandez will push for the transfer to happen.
The valuation is at least 120M, which leaves the deal at the club-to-club stage rather than the player stage. A first contact between the clubs is expected soon, so the agreement on personal terms does not yet move the transfer across the line.
Fabrizio Romano’s view
Fabrizio Romano offered the brake on the story. He said Fernandez is for sure on Real Madrid’s list, that there are two or three midfielders under consideration, and that Real Madrid have genuine interest in him.
He also said the player would be open to joining Real Madrid. But he was blunt about the present state of play: there have been zero contacts between Chelsea and Real Madrid, zero negotiations and zero discussions as of Friday, and Fernandez is not even in negotiations at this stage.
That clash matters because it separates a player-level agreement from a completed transfer. One side is selling the move as close, the other says the clubs have not even opened talks, and the gap between those positions is still the fee.
Chelsea and Real Madrid
Chelsea’s stance has already been tested once this season. Last season, they punished Fernandez for comments about a potential move to Real Madrid during the final international break of the campaign, and earlier this month they lost Marc Cucurella to Real Madrid in a £51.8m deal.
For now, the path is simple: a verbal agreement exists, Chelsea resist the exit, and Real Madrid still need to put a number on the table that both clubs can live with. Until that happens, Fernandez stays in the middle of a transfer that is part promise, part standoff.
