Barcelona confirm €11.8m fee agreed with Palmeiras for Yerry Mina

Barcelona confirmed that they have reached an agreement with Brazilian club Palmeiras for Yerry Mina on Thursday, 11 January.

The two clubs agreed a fee of €11.8m (£10.4m), which will see the Colombian international move to the Camp Nou in the January transfer window. He will sign a five-and-a-half year deal with the Spanish giants, keeping him at the club until 2023 and will have a €100m release clause in his Barcelona contract.

"FC Barcelona and Palmeiras have reached an agreement for the transfer of the player Yerry Mina for the remainder of the season and five more until June 30, 2023. The cost of the transfer is 11.8 million euros and the termination clause is 100 million," a statement on Barcelona's official website read.

The Catalan club had an option to sign the 23-year-old for €9m (£7.9m, $10.7m) after the end of the current season. However, Ernesto Valverde's side have decided to bring in the centre-back early.

Mina's transfer saga has been going on for a while, but the player's desire to leave South America and make a switch to Barcelona convinced Palmeiras to sanction his sale, according to the club's sporting director Alexandre Mattos.

His arrival will now enable Barcelona to allow Javier Mascherano to leave the club in the ongoing transfer window. The Argentine defender already has an agreement in place to leave the club, with the ex-Liverpool man set for Chinese Super League side Hebei China Fortune.

Mina, a highly rated 1.95m tall central defender, now joins Philippe Coutinho as the two new players to sign for Valverde's side this month. Brazil international Coutinho made the switch from Liverpool to Barcelona for a club-record fee of £142m.