Leicester City are set to complete the capture of Wesley Fofana before the end of the week.
L'Equipe report that the defender's club Saint Etienne have accepted a €35million bid from the Premier League side, which could rise to as much as €40million.
That price would render Fofana the Ligue 1's side most lucrative ever sale. It eclipses the €30million paid by Arsenal for William Saliba in July 2019.
Leicester had initially bid €25million for the 19-year old, who was one of the standout performers in Saint Etienne's run to the Coupe de France final last season.
"By offering this amount, Leicester prove that they really want me," Fofana told L'Equipe earlier this month.
"It is not as if I wanted to leave for a club where the number of central defenders is immense. This is a real sporting project."
He added, "When the money is there, you have to take it. It would be even crazier to say no. If I stay and don’t have a quality season, we will all have regrets. And it will be too late."
Fofana only signed professional terms with Les Verts in 2018, but made 14 Ligue 1 appearances before the 2019-20 season was brought to an early close.
Should the deal go through, he'd be Leicester's third signing of the transfer window joining Cengiz Under and Timothy Castagne.
However, Fofana was Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers' primary target. Some finer details on the deal still need to be ironed out, but it's likely he'll be a Foxes player by the close of business on October 5.
"We don’t [have a big enough squad], Rodgers said earlier this month.
"Our idea this year was to improve. The players in this last season have shown many great moments.
"In order to improve, we need quality. In that last period, when we lost some of our players, in order to rotate, we didn’t have that depth."
