Jan Busuttil joins Balzan, Jake Grech completes transfer to Floriana

Balzan and Floriana successfully concluded one of the major transfers during the January transfer window as full agreement has been reached so that Jan Busuttil leaves the Greens and joins Balzan with Jake Grech heading in the other direction.

Floriana and Balzan had been in talks since Monday night over the proposed swap deal and negotiations reached a decisive phase on Tuesday when after an agreement in principle on the deal was reached, the two clubs held talks with the players over personal terms.

Jan Busuttil met with top officials from Balzan on Tuesday evening and a verbal agreement was reached.

On the other hand, negotiations between Jake Grech and Floriana took a little bit more time but a deal was put in place on Wednesday morning.

Both clubs finalised the registration papers on Wednesday and are set to file them to the MFA so that the deal is ratified by the local governing body of football.

Jake Grech becomes Floriana’s third signing in the January transfer window after the Greens have already brought in Cape Verde striker Willis Furtado and Serbian goalkeeper Aleksa Andrijanic.

On the other hand, Busuttil becomes Balzan’s fourth signing during the January transfer window after earlier on Wednesday they announced that they signed Australian forward George Blackwood.

Earlier this month they also sealed deals for  Belgian midfielder Olivier Rommens and South Korean winger Eui Gwon Han.

Balzan president Anton Tagliaferro was delighted to have finally got his man, Jan Busuttil.

“Jan is a player we have long admired at Balzan. We tried to sign him when he was at Pieta but the player opted to go to Floriana at that stage,” Balzan president Anton Tagliaferro told the Times of Malta.

“We also enquired about him last season but Floriana were not interested in selling.

“Jake has done well for us this season although when Floriana expressed interest in him earlier in the week , we saw it as an opportunity to bring in one of Malta’s brightest young players into the squad and we now hope that the four signings that we made in January will now give us the impetus to have a much better second round.

“We have some big games coming up in the next few weeks, including a Cup game vs Sliema and we are looking forward to all the new players and the existing squad to lift and for us to do well between now and the end of the season.”