Liverpool will activate the £20M release clause in Henrikh Mkhitaryan's contract with Shakhtar Donetsk.
Speculation has intensified in the past 24 hours about the deal to secure what could be Liverpool's biggest summer signing.
The reds hierachy have identified a goalscoring midfielder as one of the major pieces of the summer's jigsaw, and will meet the £20M release clause after Donetsk have played hardball with the reds over the last 3 weeks.
The Armenian midfielder has been a goalscoring sensation in the relatively weak Ukrainian league - with 25 goals from 29 appearances in the last season. He had also scored 13 times in the previous 42 league appearances since joining Shakhtar 3 years ago.
Liverpool Managing Director Ian Ayre has pulled out of a proposed trip to Rio for a football finance conference. According to Bloomberg, sources highlighted the Mkhitaryan deal as the key reason behind the MD's cancelled trip.