Leicester City are the latest club reported to be showing interest in Panathinaikos striker Fotis Ioannidis, the subject of two rebuffed bids from the Blues.
As reported last week, the Blues’ offered a deal ultimately worth €25 million (£21.1 million), plus a sell-on of 15 per cent, to the Athens club for the Greece international, their second knocked-back bid for the 24-year-old.
A few days earlier, Italian reports had claimed Ioannidis’s agent had agreed personal terms with Bologna for the player but with no fee set with Panathinaikos.
The Serie A club are understood to have offered €18 million (€15.2 million) plus €2 million (£1.2 million) in add-ons. Another Serie A side, Lazio, could also be keen, according to a Greek report.
French side Lille were reported to have made a €21 million (£17.7 million) offer earlier that week, while Portuguese club Sporting CP had previously looked the favourites to land Ioannidis, however, they are now understood to be looking elsewhere with the fee Town offered higher than they could match.
It had been reported that another Premier League club was likely to join the hunt for the highly rated frontman and now SDNA reports that the Foxes are looking at his data and assessing whether they might be in a position to recruit the Greece international.
There has been little new on Town’s interest over the last week but it’s believed the Blues’ most recent bid remains on the table, although it’s likely other options are also being looked at.
Greek sources have indicated to TWTD that Panathinaikos will hope to get the bidding up towards the €30 million (£25.4 million) mark, a figure which would almost certainly be more than Town would be willing to spend on one player this summer.
Ioannidis was a youth player with Olympiacos Chalkida and Levadiakos before breaking into senior football with the latter late in 2018 and in August 2020, he joined Panathinaikos on a four-year deal.
Goals were hard to come by in his first three seasons with the Athens-based side, netting four, four and seven in the league in those campaigns.
Nevertheless, his form was good enough to see him win the first of his 11 full caps, in which he has scored two goals, in 2022, having already played at U18, U19 and U21 levels.
Last season, Ioannidis, whose father Vasilios also played professionally in Greece, netted 23 times and picked up nine assists in all competitions, 15 in the league, seven in Europe, as Panathinaikos narrowly missed out on the group stage of the Champions League before entering the Europa League.