Chelsea receive huge Kendry Paez update ahead of January transfer window
- Chelsea have agreed a £17m deal to sign Paez from Independiente del Valle
- Teenage midfielder cannot join Blues until 2025
- Mauricio Pochettino is hoping for his first look at Paez this winter
By Tom Gott
Chelsea could get their first glimpse of teenage starlet Kendry Paez this winter after it was confirmed he has received a visa to travel to England.
The Blues have agreed a deal worth around £17m to sign 16-year-old Paez from Independiente del Valle, but FIFA rules mean he cannot officially join up with his new employers until he turns 18 in May 2025.
In the meantime, Paez continued to dazzle with both Independiente and the Ecuador senior national team, for whom he already has five starts and a goal to his name.
Paez is expected to finish the Ecuadorian season, which comes to a close later this month, before travelling to Chelsea to train with Mauricio Pochettino's first team.
"We just had Kendry Paez's visa accepted, and now we have to wait for Chelsea FC's planning for him to travel," Independiente director Roberto Arroyo told Mach Deportes.
Fans have been repeatedly watching highlights from Paez in Ecuador. The teenager is already the youngest player and goalscorer in the history of his country's top flight, while he was just days from breaking Diego Maradona's record for the youngest player to feature for a senior national team in South American history.
He continues to impress and is expected to strut his stuff in Chelsea's training videos soon enough after Pochettino confirmed Paez is due to visit the club this winter.
"The club is taking care of him at the moment," Pochettino said. "He will soon travel here to England to spend time with us, to get to know us better so that he gets to understand what Chelsea is all about.
"This is an unusual situation that needs a lot of attention because he is a young boy and, with everything he is going through, there is a lot of temptation and a lot of risk that everything that is positive for him today can quickly turn negative, which is why the attention from everyone at Chelsea is on top of his situation and his family with every single detail, so he can arrive to Chelsea in the future and he can perform in the way we think he can due to his talent."
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