Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has confirmed his club are interested in signing Arturo Vidal from Juventus but said a deal is not yet completed.
Bayern made a move for Chile midfielder Vidal earlier this week and kicker suggested on Thursday that all parties were in agreement on a five-year contract and a transfer fee of €35 million.
However, Rummenigge told reporters at Munich airport on Thursday evening that there was still a lot of work to be done.
"I won't hide the fact that we're interested in him," he said before leaving for Bayern's preseason tour of China on Thursday evening. "But on the way out here I read that everything is agreed -- that's something I can't confirm.
"Like I said, we are interested but we haven't got as far as details like the transfer fee and the player's contract and so on yet.
"So you certainly still have to be patient but we hope that, at the end of the day, the player will come to us."
He added: "He's a midfielder with great quality and it's no coincidence that Juve won the title four times in the past four years with him, but like I've said we've just got to wait and see. I don't want to go too far."
Asked later if a transfer was very likely, though, he told tz.de: "Yes."
Reports in Italy had suggested that Bayern would offer Germany midfielder Mario Gotze, 23, in exchange but Rummenigge ruled that possibility out.
"There's no connection between the transfers," he said, seemingly leaving the door open for a separate sale.
The Bayern CEO heavily criticised Vidal four years ago for allegedly going back on a promise to sign for Bayern and moving to Italy instead.
Vidal went on to win four Serie A titles with Juventus, but Rummenigge said on Thursday that Bayern had been given a false impression of the player's intentions.
He said: "We have a new employee at our club since last year called Michael Reschke, who was at Leverkusen at the time, and he told me -- let's put it this way -- the absolute truth, and that was that Leverkusen totally wanted to prevent Vidal from ending up at Bayern for four years.
"Jupp Heynckes [Bayern's coach at the time] really wanted the player and we tried to sign him. The message we were given was that the player didn't want to come, but that's not true.
"It was Leverkusen who clearly turned down what was a better offer from us at the time purely because they didn't want Vidal to continue playing in the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich."
Despite Rummenigge's caution in public, Bayern are expected to finalise the purchase of Vidal in the coming days, and he also hinted that the German champions could do more business in the wake of Bastian Schweinsteiger's departure for Manchester United.
"So long as the transfer window is open, I don't want to rule anything out," he said.