Sunderland agree O'Donovan fee

Sunderland have finally agreed a fee with Cork City for 21-year-old striker Roy O'Donovan who is set to do a medical at the Stadium of Light today.

The two clubs have apparently settled on an initial fee of around €500,000 for the under-21 international with the Premiership outfit potentially paying the same again in performance related bonuses.

"I feel it's the right club for me," said O'Donovan after the deal was done yesterday.

"It was a great situation to be in with two Premier Division clubs looking to sign me but I was really impressed with Roy Keane. He put me under no pressure; all he did was talk about football but afterwards my gut feeling was that this was the right club for me."

It remains slightly unclear when O'Donovan will actually leave for the north east of England with the player himself unsure yesterday whether he would still be around to feature in tomorrow night's Cork City game at Bohemians but clearly his time at the club is on the verge of coming to an end.

"I'm hugely grateful to everybody at City for what they have done for me," he said.

"Three years ago I came home after being released by Coventry City and the club was very good to me. I like to think that I repaid at least some of the debt with the effort I put into playing while I was here.

"I'm very excited now about what is a huge new challenge for me and I'm aware that this isn't the time for pats on the back. I haven't done anything yet but I'm going to do everything possible to make sure I make a success of my time at Sunderland."

The €500,000 to be paid up front is the largest initial fee ever paid by an English club to a League of Ireland player although Dundalk earned more than €1 million from the sale of Staunton to Liverpool after they had collected a succession of bonuses and a percentage of the fee when he left Anfield.