Stoke City player close to sealing European transfer deal | OneFootball

Stoke City look set to be rid of transfer flop Kevin Wimmer for good as he looks destined for a move to Austrian side Rapid Vienna, per Kurier.

It would mean a return to his native country for the centre-back, who joined the Potters in the summer of 2017 for a mammoth £18 million fee and hasn’t played for the club since January 2018.

Wimmer has been on several loan stints away from Staffordshire since his last outing, with spells in Germany and Belgium with Hannover and Mouscron and he’s spent the second half of this season at 2. Bundesliga side Karlsruhe.

They wanted to keep Wimmer for next season, however according to the club, per Kicker, the 28-year-old has turned down the opportunity of a permanent move to the club, stating that they did not know whether he would be returning to the Potters or switching to a different club.

That seems to have now been answered as according to Kurier in Austria, Wimmer is in the process of terminating his Stoke contract a year early so he can be free to move wherever he wishes – and that next destination looks set to be the Austrian capital.

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The Verdict

This is good news for Stoke who have no doubt been wanting to get Wimmer’s wages off the books for a while now.

He never got a look in when Paul Lambert replaced Mark Hughes just months after he arrived from Tottenham Hotspur, and he must go down as one of Stoke’s biggest transfer failures.

You dread to think how much in total the defender has cost the club in both his transfer fee and salary over the years, and it’s doubtful that the clubs he has been loaned to were paying much of his wages either.

The club will probably have to pay him a handsome sum to depart early but they made a rod for their own back when handing out the contract in the first place – and he’s likely to be one of many senior players heading out of the exit door of the bet365 Stadium this summer.