ARSENAL are reportedly ready to terminate Mesut Ozil’s contract with the club.
The midfielder remains well out of the first-team picture, with boss Mikel Arteta unlikely to add him to his squad list for the second half of the season.
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Now, according to Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano, the Gunners are ready to cut their losses six months early.
Romano posted on Twitter that ‘negotiations are still on’ but that there has been no agreement to rip up his contract yet.
Turkish giants Fenerbahce are the favourites to sign the 32-year-old, and they are prepared to wait until the end of the transfer window to get him.
SunSport exclusively revealed how Ozil is prepared to leave Arsenal this month.
And he is ready to accept the club spreading payment of the rest of his contract over the next three years.
His £350,000-a-week deal doesn’t expire until the summer.
The World Cup winner is in no mood to sacrifice the remaining £8.75million of the wages due to him just so Arsenal can get him off their wage bill with Fenerbahce and DC United both interested in his signature.
But SunSport understands he would be prepared to help the club out.
That would be by reaching a deal which would see them reduce their weekly payments to him to £68,000 until the summer of 2023.
Though that would see Arsenal having to keep Ozil on their wage bill for another two-and-a-half years, it would reduce their immediate wage commitment to the midfielder by £1.2m-A-MONTH.
With Premier League clubs being bitten hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, that long-term payment plan might be attractive to the bean counters at the Emirates.
The other option would be to come up with a cash offer covering the vast majority of the six months left on the former Real Madrid star’s contract, otherwise he is likely to stay put until the summer.
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