Milan have reached an agreement with Porto to send Santiago Gimenez to Portugal this summer, according to Fabrizio Romano.
The striker has been linked with a move away from Milan throughout the window, but turning the noise into a concrete deal proved awkward. Porto sat near the front of the queue for weeks, yet a first agreement with the player collapsed when the clubs could not settle on a fee.
That gap has now closed. Romano reports the deal is structured as a free loan with an €18m buy option that includes bonuses, and the option can become an obligation depending on Gimenez's playing time and certain objectives.
“FC Porto reach verbal agreement to sign Santi Giménez from AC Milan, here we go! Free loan, €18m plus bonuses as buy option clause that could become mandatory based on playing time and objectives,” Romano wrote on X. He added that Gimenez “will fly soon to Portugal to complete the move.”
The structure gives Milan a route to recoup a meaningful fee without asking Porto to commit the full amount up front, while the conditional trigger means the sale could still land close to €18m if the Mexican rediscovers his scoring touch. That is the version of Gimenez Milan gambled on when they signed him, the one who made his name at Feyenoord rather than the one who struggled for goals in Serie A.
For all sides, this reads as a clean way to move on from a spell that never took off at San Siro.
From here, the move rests on Gimenez completing his medical and formalising terms in Portugal, with the buy option's fate to be decided by how much he plays.