Canadian ace David nearing Lille move

Team Canada forward Jonathan David is reportedly in the "paperwork stage" of joining French side Lille for a transfer fee of 30 million euros ($47.3 million), according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

The source, not authorized to speak because the deal has yet to be finalized, said on the weekend the two sides have "reached a verbal agreement and are now finalizing the paperwork".

The 20-year-old David, voted Canada's player of the year in 2019, tied for leading scorer in Belgium's top flight this season with 18 goals for Gent.

Lille was fourth in Ligue 1 when the French season was ended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

English clubs Arsenal and newly promoted Leeds United were also reportedly interested in acquiring the sniper, who has notched 11 goals in 12 appearances for Canada and is already halfway to matching Dwayne De Rosario's men's national team record of 22 goals.

De Rosario, who doubled as an attacking midfielder and forward, compiled his total in 81 games between 1997 and 2015.

Six of David's goals for Canada came at last year's CONCACAF Gold Cup, where he won the Golden Boot as top scorer and was named to the tournament's Best XI.

If his transfer to Lille is completed, it will eclipse Alphonso Davies' 2018 move to Bayern Munich from the Vancouver Whitecaps as the biggest deal in Canadian soccer history. That involved a fixed transfer fee and additional compensation of around $30 million.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, David was 3 months old when his family moved back to their native Haiti and 6 years old when they relocated to Ottawa, Canada's capital city.

A multi-talented attacker who is adept at exploiting defensive weaknesses, he earned a trial with Gent in 2017 after a scout saw him on video. After finishing high school in Ottawa, he returned to Europe to focus full time on soccer and signed a pro contract after turning 18 in January 2018.

Having initially impressed with the Gent reserves, he quickly earned promotion to the first team.

"After that season with the second team, everything went really fast," he recalled in an interview with Canadian Press last September.

"I got in with the first team in preseason, played some good games, scored some goals and had my opportunity. Then I kept scoring … and everything just escalated."

David netted in his league debut for Gent with a late equalizer against Zulte-Waregem as a substitute, then made his senior debut for Team Canada in September 2018 in an 8-0 Nations League qualifying game against the US Virgin Islands, bagging a brace.

He's part of a select group of players with 20-plus combined goals for club and country.

Since the turn of the century, Canada Soccer says only five other Canadian men have scored 20-plus goals in a calendar year: Tomasz Radzinski (in 1999 and 2000), Simeon Jackson (2009), Olivier Occean (2011), De Rosario (2011) and Cyle Larin (2015).