Pablo Fornals future at West Ham United to be finalised within hours as deal hangs in limbo

Pablo Fornals is set to have his West Ham exit to Real Betis confirmed in the “coming hours”, despite the paperwork not going through on Deadline Day.

Writing on their website (2 February), The Telegraph report that the Spaniard is expected to complete his move back to La Liga after technology problems caused a delay in the paperwork being filed on time.

And the situation is set to be resolved within hours with FIFA investigating the issues that occurred, with the expectation that the deal will be allowed to proceed after terms were agreed on Thursday afternoon.

Sensible

It makes sense that West Ham agreed the deal late on considering Fornals’ contract is due to expire in the summer, although there is an option to extend it by a further 12 months.

It means that his value is only going to decline from this point onwards and the club have clearly made the decision to allow both him and Said Benrahma to leave despite not being able to bring in reinforcements.

It would only harm the player, West Ham and Real Betis if FIFA then forced him to stay at the London Stadium at this point, because the whole point of his exit was that he wasn’t needed and he didn’t want to be here.

West Ham

Hopefully there will be some clarification on the matter soon considering Fornals was supposed to be in the match-day squad for the draw with Bournemouth but then got withdrawn because the deal was said to be close.

Fingers crossed it can be dealt with and the club can bring in the money for the player rather than having an unhappy member of the squad around for the next six months.

In other West Ham news, post-deadline hope emerges today for West Ham exit deal after online system fail.

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