Atletico to sign Mexican striker Raul Jimenez

Madrid, Aug 12 (IANS) Spanish Primera Liga Champions Atletico Madrid are likely to sign Mexican international striker Raul Jimenez.

Although the club was yet to issue a communique confirming the signing, Spanish sports paper, Marca, reported the deal has been closed to take the 23-year-old from Club America de Mexico, his first club, to the Vicente Calderon Stadium for a fee of 10.5 million euros ($14 million), reports Xinhua.

The striker, who won an Olympic gold medal with Mexico in the 2012 London Olympic Games and was part of the Mexican squad for the World Cup finals, has agreed a six-year contract and will strengthen Atletico’ s attack after the summer departures of Diego Costa and Adrian Lopez.

When asked about Jimenez’ s arrival earlier in the day, Atletico Madrid President, Enrique Cerezo made no secret of his club’ s intention to sign the forward, who averages just over a goal every three games at club level.

“Professional players know what they do and when they join our club, they don’t want to leave. He’s going to fall in love with Atletico,” said Cerezo.

The Mexican has several times shown his support for Atletico’ s bitter local rivals, Real Madrid, on social networking sites and in one ‘tweet’ from last season, celebrated a Real Madrid goal against the club that has now just signed him.

Obviously this has not gone down well with Atletico fans and Jimenez may find himself with some serious PR work ahead of him.

“Mexico has always had magnificent footballers,” added Cerezo, whose club have already spent big on players such as Antoine Griezmann, Mario Mandzukic, Guilherme Siqueira and Angel Correa this summer.