Reading are keen on signing River Plate defender Danilo Gerlo, according to the Argentine club.

The Royals lost 1-0 to River last week in the Peace Cup in South Korea and the central defender is keen on a move to the Premiership with Reading.

Gerlo did enough in the match between the two clubs to impress Steve Coppell enough for chairman John Madeski to make an approach.

“In the last weeks we had several offers for Gerlo from different European countries but none of them satisfied the player,” revealed River board member Hernan Cordoba.

“We received offers from Austria, Israel, Switzerland and Greece but we didn’t accept any of them because he said that for leaving River he had to receive a proposal from Spain, Italy or England.

“Now that Reading is interested in Gerlo, he has said that we could start negotiations because he is interested in playing for that team.

“He knows that the main player of the team is Kevin Doyle and he gets paid $1.5 million (£750,000) per-year so he is not going to get paid the same but he could be offered a contract that will surely be more than what he gets paid at River and in addition to that he would be playing in one of the leagues that he is interested in.”

Jose Besteiro, who is also a River Plate board member added: “We will start conversations as the player would like to have the chance of playing in England because he would improve as a professional,”

“In River he hasn’t a place for sure as there are other central defenders as Cristian Nasuti and Federico Lussenhof.”