Fiorentina have completed the signing of Mateo Pellegrino from Parma, confirming the move as a permanent transfer on 14 August 2026. The Argentine striker has signed a contract running until 30 June 2031, and the fee is reported as €22.5m guaranteed with a further €2.5m in add-ons, taking the potential total to around €25m. The deal ends weeks of speculation that also involved Juventus and Crystal Palace, both of whom had looked at Pellegrino but were unable to meet Parma's valuation, which had originally been set at close to €30m.
The signing is part of a wider reshuffle of Fiorentina's forward line. Sporting director Fabio Paratici had been tracking Pellegrino for some time and pushed the deal through as the club prepared for the new season under incoming head coach Fabio Grosso, appointed over the summer after Paolo Vanoli's exit. Grosso takes charge for 2026-27 needing a focal point up front, and Pellegrino's arrival is tied directly to Roberto Piccoli leaving in the opposite direction.
Piccoli has joined Bologna on loan with an obligation to buy worth €18m plus bonuses, a deal that becomes permanent if Bologna stay in Serie A, with Fiorentina keeping a 10% sell-on clause. He arrived at Fiorentina as an expensive forward but never established himself as a regular starter, and his exit trims a wage bill that had him on close to €3.7m a year.
For Parma, the sale of Pellegrino represents an enormous profit. They signed him from Vélez Sarsfield in February 2025 for a fee of around €2m, with the Argentine club retaining a seven percent sell-on interest. Selling him on for up to €25m barely eighteen months later shows how quickly he established himself in Italian football, and losing him removes the club's leading source of goals heading into the new campaign.
Pellegrino's form last season explains the interest. The 24-year-old scored 12 goals and added an assist in 39 appearances across Serie A and the Coppa Italia, finishing as Parma's top scorer in his first full season in Italian football. It capped a rapid rise for a player who came through Vélez Sarsfield's academy and had loan spells at Estudiantes and Platense in Argentina before Parma brought him to Europe.
At 1.92m tall and left-footed, Pellegrino offers a different physical profile to Piccoli and gives Fiorentina a clear focal point to build the attack around. He arrives as the club's first-choice centre-forward heading into Grosso's first season in charge, with the length of his contract suggesting Fiorentina see him as a long-term solution up front rather than a short-term fix.