Ipswich Town approaches Lille to sign defender Alexsandro for €30M

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Ipswich Town approaches Lille to sign defender Alexsandro for €30M

The Brazilian centre-back joined Lille for €2M in 2022 and is now attracting Premier League attention at a price tag fifteen times higher

by
Editorial Team

Jun. 29, 2026

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Ipswich Town has made an approach to French club Lille for Brazilian centre-back Alexsandro Ribeiro, with a reported fee of around €30 million on the table. That number is worth sitting with for a moment: four years ago, this same player moved from Portuguese side Chaves to Lille for €2 million.

From Chaves to the Premier League radar

Alexsandro Victor de Souza Ribeiro, 26, joined Lille in the summer of 2022 and quickly settled into Ligue 1 as a reliable, composed centre-back. At 189 cm, he brings the kind of physical presence that top-flight clubs across Europe covet.

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His development at Lille has been rapid enough that a queue formed long before Ipswich arrived. Bologna, Arsenal, Napoli, and Galatasaray have all been linked to Ribeiro during the 2024-2025 window, with reported interest from clubs willing to pay somewhere in the €15 million to €35 million range. Galatasaray, at one point, were quoted an asking price of €35 million by Lille, which gives you a sense of where the French club’s floor sits.

Ipswich’s reported approach at approximately €30 million lands comfortably inside that range, though it remains below the ceiling Lille has apparently set.

Current market valuations for Ribeiro sit between €17.5 million and €22.4 million, meaning the €30 million approach from Ipswich represents a meaningful premium over those estimates.

What this means for the transfer market

No official confirmation or agreement exists as of late June 2026, so Ipswich fans should treat this as an opening move in what could be a longer negotiation rather than a done deal.

If the deal does go through at or near €30 million, it sets a useful reference point for how the market values centre-backs of Ribeiro’s profile: young, proven in a major European league, with significant room for growth.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.