On Monday it was reported in France that Newcastle United had made a bid to buy Matias Fernandez-Pardo.
L’Équipe stated that they’d been told that Newcastle United had offered €40m (approx £34.2m) plus an unspecified sum of potential future-add-ons.
Last (2025/26) season saw a huge breakthrough year for Matias Fernandez-Pardo as he helped Lille to third place in Ligue 1, starting 27 league matches and scoring eight goals plus getting five assists.
That breakthrough league season saw the 21-year-old also suddenly selected for the World Cup finals and after making his debut for Belgium in a friendly in June, he went on to play in this summer’s tournament and now has five international caps.
The French media have also reported that Matias Fernandez-Pardo is determined to leave Lille this summer, whilst the club’s chairman Olivier Létang doesn’t want to sell their young star without/unless a replacement lined up. As well as Newcastle United, a number of other clubs are also said to be interested in the exciting young attacking talent, including Atlético Madrid and RB Leipzig, but no news of any concrete offers from anybody other than United.
An interesting development has now been revealed, with Lille now banning the Newcastle United transfer target from training or playing for the time being…
Lille manager Davide Ancelotti announcing today about Matias Fernandez-Pardo: “I have decided, in consultation with the club, that he’ll no longer train with the squad until the end of the transfer window…I am focusing on the players who are available for tomorrow’s match [against PSG] and who are training with us.”
It sounds like a situation that has become impossible and it sound more like ‘Matias Fernandez-Pardo will no longer train with the Lille squad until he is sold…’
It sounds like this is more a case of making this public, rather that it being a new thing. Matias Fernandez-Pardo was on the bench for Lille’s final pre-season friendly against Everton but wasn’t in the matchday squad on Sunday for their opening league match, a 2-0 win away at Angers.
It feels like the exciting young attacking player will be with a new club by the close of Tuesday 1 September, transfer deadline day in both England and France, whether that new club will be Newcastle United remains to be seen.