River Plate midfield star Oscar Ahumada is on the verge of signing with Atalanta.

"There are still some documents to be signed, but I can say that Ahumada has been transferred to Atalanta because they have accepted to pay the £1.4m that River want for the player," said River Plate supremo Jose Maria Aguilar.

"We are very proud of Ahumada because he grew up at River and our current Coach Daniel Passarella considers him one of the most important players in the team. However, we can't halt his career.

"He has already played in Europe [with Wolfsburg] and the player told us that he was interested in playing in Italy so we spoke with Passarella about his situation and we decided to let him go.

"We are sure Ahumada is going to have success with his new team and on the other hand, we are calm. We have players like Leonardo Ponzio, Rene Lima and Nicolas Domingo to replace him."