Leeds United's first summer signing could be £43m gem ready to storm Premier League

These are heady times at Elland Road. Leeds comfortably secured another season of Premier League football last season, and new reports now suggest that they could be set to flex the financial muscle offered by their freshly-solidified position in the top tier – with a bid for a defender who has been tracked by many of the world’s biggest sides.

According to Portuguese newspaper A Bola, whose report is relayed by Sport Witness, Leeds are preparing to make a bid for Sporting centre-back Ousmane Diomande, a rising star coveted by many elite clubs. Leeds, it would seem, are hoping to start the 2026/27 season with a significant coup.

Leeds set to bid for Ousmane Diomande – reports

If A Bola are to be believed, Leeds are “willing to go to extremes” to sign Diomande, a 22-year-old Ivory Coast international currently preparing for the World Cup with his national side. Given the level of interest in him, they might have to.

A number of other Premier League teams are also said to be monitoring the Sporting centre-back, with Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle among them – all sides who have been credited with interest in the Ivorian for several years now.

That means that Leeds may face an uphill battle, and as such they’re said to be moving quickly in the hope of getting in before other sides make their move. With Diomande concentrating on the World Cup, that may be difficult, but he wouldn’t be the only player negotiating a transfer in the middle of the tournament.

Diomande has an €80m (£69m) release clause baked into his contract, but Leeds are hoping to pay rather less – apparently they intend to offer a package worth up to €50m (£43m) including add-ons. That’s the fee Sporting are said to have demanded in order to open negotiations.

If Leeds are indeed willing to match Sporting’s asking price, then they will have a head start on other sides who are still weighing up their options before dipping into the transfer market. Whether that’s enough of an advantage to get a deal done remains to be seen.

There is no word on Diomande’s own thoughts about his future or whether he would prefer to hold out for a side competing towards the top end of the table, but Leeds should now have the funding to make a compelling financial case for a move to Elland Road. A Bola’s reporting certainly suggests that they are willing to break the bank to secure a player with a seemingly bright future.

Will Diomande move to Leeds this summer?

The biggest barrier to a deal is likely to be other sides – if Arsenal or Chelsea, for example, do indeed make a bid, then Leeds may find themselves outgunned.

While A Bola don’t suggest that any of those sides have yet opened negotiations, Arsenal, Chelsea and Newcastle have all been credited with interest for some time, with the Gunners in particular said to have made enquiries both last summer and in the winter.

For some time, Sporting held out on selling Diomande, insisting that any interested parties must pay his full €80m release clause before they would let him leave. A Bola’s reporting suggests that their stance may have softened – but that’s far from certain, and seems to fly in the face of their previous strategy.

Diomande signed a new contract extension in January which ties him to the Lisbon club until 2030, although the fact that the new deal maintained the pre-existing €80m release clause hinted at the fact that the player intends to move on eventually. What’s unclear is why Sporting might lower their demands now, less than six months after he penned a new deal.

It may be that they were always willing to deal at a lower fee and that reports insisting that they were pushing for the maximum possible price were wide of the mark – certainly that theory seems likely to be tested this summer.

If they do hold out for the full price, then that could be enough to price many sides, perhaps including Leeds, out of the market. Much is unknown at this stage, but one thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that Leeds are very serious about trying to sign a technically exceptional player touted as one of the brightest young ball-playing centre-back prospects in the game. Getting a deal done will be difficult, perhaps even impossible, but it would also represent an impressive coup if they can make it happen.