Robinho could be reunited with Bernd Schuster, his former Real Madrid coach, at Besiktas. Photograph: Tim Hales/AP
Robinho is close to ending his unhappy two-year spell at Manchester City by joining Besiktas after the Turkish club made a formal offer of £16m, plus a further £10m in potential add-ons.
The deal will offer City the chance to recoup at least half the £32.5m they paid Real Madrid to make the Brazilian the most expensive player in English football on the day the Abu Dhabi United Group took control.
The rest of the proposal, submitted this afternoon after several weeks of on-off negotiations between the two clubs, will be based on performance-related payments, with Besiktas taking measures to protect themselves against the 26-year-old fading as badly in Istanbul as he has done in Manchester.
Several other clubs, notably the German side Schalke 04, have also expressed an interest, but the talks with Besiktas are at an advanced stage and it is thought Robinho's advisers have already agreed in principle to a four-year contract.
Besiktas finished fourth in the Turkish league last season, missing out on a place in the Champions League, but have shown their ambition this summer by signing Guti from Real Madrid, where the Spanish midfielder used to be a team-mate of Robinho, and the Portuguese winger Ricardo Quaresma from Internazionale.
After ending his six-month loan arrangement with his former club Santos back in Brazil, Robinho is also tempted by the chance to work with Bernd Schuster, his former coach at Real. Schuster did not want Robinho to leave the Bernabéu but the decision was taken out of his hands by the then president, Ramón Calderón.
Garry Cook, the City chief executive, and the club's football administrator, Brian Marwood, have been concentrating on bringing in players over the last few weeks, but now that process is concluded, with six players signed for a total cost of £126m, they will turn their attention to trimming an over-sized squad, and Robinho is regarded as the priority.
Roberto Mancini, the City manager, has been planning without him, and more talks will be held with the Besiktas chairman, Yildirim Demiroren, today.
Robinho was strategically left out of City's squad for the Europa League qualifier against Timisoara last night so his transfer valuation would not depreciate. Schuster said: "I am confident that our chairman will do everything in his power to make this possible."
