Arsenal and Newcastle agree £75m fee for Bruno Guimarães transfer
Arsenal and Newcastle have agreed a £75m fee for Bruno Guimarães, with the Brazil midfielder set to leave Newcastle’s pre-season training camp in southern Spain to travel to London for the move on 5 August 2026. The clubs reached the compromise on the fee after negotiations, clearing the way for the transfer to proceed.
Arsenal had initially sought to pay no more than £60m while Newcastle demanded a minimum of £80m, and the Magpies rejected an opening offer of £70m on Monday. Guimarães, who will turn 29 in November, has two years remaining on his Newcastle contract. Newcastle, having already sold Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali to Barcelona and Tottenham respectively earlier this summer, had no pressing need to sell the midfielder and regarded him as integral to their 2025 League Cup triumph.
Guimarães joined Newcastle from Lyon in January 2022 and made 153 League appearances for the club, scoring 30 goals and providing 26 assists. The club have, the report says, struggled to win games when he has been absent from the side. He became an enduring crowd favourite as Eddie Howe’s former team twice qualified for the Champions League.
The report adds that the loss of Guimarães is likely to affect Newcastle supporters more than Alexander Isak’s move to Liverpool last year. The parting between Guimarães and Newcastle is described as cordial and is explicitly contrasted with Isak’s acrimonious exit last summer.
Guimarães was determined to join Arsenal even before Eddie Howe stepped down as manager last week. He flew to La Manga to meet Arsenal’s incoming manager, Matthias Jaissle, on Monday and is understood to have told Jaissle he wanted to leave; the club could not persuade him to change his mind.
Lyon are set to receive a windfall in the region of £7m because of a sell-on clause that entitles them to 20% of any profit Newcastle make on Guimarães’s sale. That payment stems from the fee arrangement agreed between the two clubs.
After the clubs agreed the £75m compromise, Guimarães is scheduled to undergo a medical in north London in the next couple of days to complete the transfer.