The agent of Brazilian winger Malcom has said the player reneged on an agreement to join AS Roma and instead moved to Barcelona as "revenge" for a deal that involved the same parties earlier this summer. 

Malcom was set to join the Giallorossi before Barca raised interest in his services and quickly completed a £45 million deal. Leonardo Cornacini told Tuttomercatoweb (h/t MailOnline's Michael Searles) Roma paid the price for their behaviour in an earlier transfer involving goalkeeper Daniel Fuzato:

"The truth is that we decided not to go to Roma because they behaved badly with us.

"I was working on a deal for Fuzato, who is another of my clients, but Roma closed it with another agent, although it's worth mentioning that I have nothing against him. In short, it was revenge.

"I'm sorry to say it, but that's what it was. Roma behaved badly with us, 10 days before with the Fuzato deal, so we acted the same way towards them."

BBC Sport reported on July 23 that Roma had agreed a deal to sign the 21-year-old. One day later, Sport confirmed Barca had beaten the Italians to the punch with a slightly higher offer.

Malcom always looked likely to leave Bordeaux this summer after coming close to an exit in January, but Barcelona's interest was fairly new, and football writer Ben Hayward described the chaos at the club this summer:

The U-turn on joining Roma wasn't solely the decision of Malcom's agent, however, as Cornacini continued:

"Given the attitude shown towards us, I decided, together with Malcom, that the best destination wasn't the Giallorossi one.

"And then again, in the same deal for Malcom, Monchi had involved other intermediaries. Today, however, Malcom is happy to be a new signing for Barcelona."

The early signs during Malcom's Blaugrana tenure have been largely positive. The youngster scored the winning spot-kick in a pre-season penalty shootout win over Tottenham Hotspur, then netted against Roma in a 4-2 defeat in the 2018 International Champions Cup.

Malcom wasn't the Catalan club's only example of frustrating Italian giants this summer, either, and journalist Mootaz Chehade detailed Arturo Vidal's move to the Camp Nou also came after Serie A interest:

He joins fellow summer arrival and compatriot Arthur Melo at the club, with fellow Brazilians Philippe Coutinho and Rafinha Alcantara already making up part of the South American contingent.

Malcom's first-team prospects at Barcelona may not be as bright as they would have been in Rome, but his agent's comments suggest there are other factors that can take precedence when dealing in transfer matters.