Alexandre Lacazette has joined Arsenal in a club record €60m (£52.7m) deal and signed a five-year contract with the Premier League side.
The France striker completed his medical on Tuesday after being given permission to travel to London by the Lyon president, Jean-Michel Aulas. Arsenal’s opening offer of €35m was rejected last week. The fee surpasses the £42.5m Arsenal paid Real Madrid for Mesut Özil in 2013.
Lacazette is expected to travel with his Arsenal team-mates to Sydney on Sunday for the first part of the club’s pre-season preparations.
A number of teams had registered an interest in Lacazette, who has 11 caps and was contracted to Lyon until 2019 after graduating through their exceptional academy system. The player had expressed a desire to join Atlético Madrid, having deemed the time right to further his career by departing Ligue 1, but the Spanish club’s transfer ban, which stands until January 2018, complicated their pursuit and allowed Arsenal to steal a march on the 26-year-old’s other suitors.
The striker, who has scored a century of league goals for Lyon in 203 appearances, is eager to make his mark at club level before the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia.
Lacazette had hoped to play in the Champions League next season, a competition for which Arsenal have failed to qualify after finishing fifth, but that disappointment could be eased by evidence of the club’s renewed ambition in the market under Arsène Wenger this summer.
