Swansea City trail £3m Spanish defender Chico Flores

Posted Sunday, July 01, 2012 by Thisissouthwales

SWANSEA City are on the trail of Spanish centre-back Chico Flores.

The Evening Post understands Swansea are interested in the Genoa defender and may be prepared to pay as much as £3 million.

Genoa are looking to offload the 25-year-old, who has three years to run on his contract and finished last season on loan at Real Mallorca.

After breaking through at hometown club Cadiz, Flores spent a loan spell at Barcelona B before signing for Almeria.

He featured 27 times during the 2009-10 campaign as Almeria preserved their top-flight status, and impressed enough to earn a four million euro move to the Italian giants.

But Flores, who has three caps at under-21 level, featured just 15 times for the Serie A side the following season and arrived at Real Mallorca a month before Michael Laudrup left the club.

He was a regular for Mallorca last term.

Swansea are keen to recruit another centre-back as Steven Caulker has returned to Spurs after a superb season-long loan spell at the Liberty.

There had been talk of the England Under-21 defender coming back to South Wales for a second stint, though that seems unlikely until the White Hart Lane club appoint a new manager and he has the opportunity to assess his squad.

Mallorca hoped to sign Flores permanently but are probably not able to compete with Swan- sea financially.