MARSEILLE: Arsenal are close to reaching an agreement to sign Colombia goalkeeper David Ospina from Nice for a reported four million euros (3.2million pounds, $5.4million), the French club’s president confirmed on Sunday.

“There isn’t an agreement yet but we’re not far away,” Nice president Jean-Pierre Rivere said.

The two clubs are understood to have reached a verbal agreement over the transfer, according to a source close to the Ligue 1 outfit, but the move has yet to be finalised.

Ospina, 25, has spent the past six seasons with Nice and was part of the Colombia side that reached the quarters of the World Cup in Brazil for the first time in the country’s history.—AFP

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2014