Demi Akarakiri Set to Join Cagliari for Serie A Opportunity

Demi Akarakiri has barely had time to unpack his bags at Finch Farm. Now he’s preparing to leave again – this time for Sardinia and a shot at Serie A football.

The 18-year-old midfielder, who only joined Everton in 2024 after a decade in Arsenal’s academy, is closing in on a move to Cagliari as he looks for a quicker route into senior football. His own social media all but confirmed the break, with a “thank you” message to Everton signalling the end of a short but intriguing chapter on Merseyside.

Everton had not given up on him. On June 10, when the club outlined their summer contract decisions and confirmed ongoing talks with Idrissa Gueye over his future, Akarakiri was among those offered new deals, alongside Melvin Matos and Rocco Lambert. Others in the Under-18s group – Goodness Gospel-Eze, Louis Poland, Charlie Stewart and Kean Wren – were told they would depart at the end of June.

Akarakiri, though, has chosen a different road.

For a Londoner schooled for ten years at Arsenal and then picked up by Everton, the decision underlines his impatience to move beyond academy football. Cagliari, who finished 14th in Serie A last season under Fabio Pisacane, are presenting themselves not as a distant project but as a stage, right now.

Reports in Italy suggest the deal is already well advanced. Sport Witness, citing Corriere dello Sport, reported on Friday that Akarakiri underwent a medical in Rome on Thursday and is expected to sign a five-year contract. For a teenager still waiting on a senior debut in England, that’s a serious commitment – and a clear statement of intent from the Sardinian club.

Inside Cagliari, the move is being framed as smart business and a strategic marker. The same report notes that new sporting director Pietro Accardi views the capture of Akarakiri as a “significant coup,” a symbol of a shift in recruitment: identify young talent at a relatively low cost, develop it, and sell at a premium.

The president has not exactly kept his cards close to his chest either. Tommaso Giulini has openly hinted that the incoming teenager from the Premier League is not being brought in to simply make up the numbers in the youth ranks. The message is clear: this is a signing for the senior setup, with a place in the first-team matchday squad firmly on the table.

For Everton, it is a reminder of the modern reality. Even when a club offers a contract, it cannot always offer the pathway a young player craves. With established midfield options and the pressure of Premier League survival, the step from academy to first team can look painfully long.

For Akarakiri, Cagliari offer something different: a club rebuilding, a league famed for tactical education, and a hierarchy promising opportunity rather than distant possibility. If he seizes it, this quiet move out of the English youth system could be the moment his career truly starts to accelerate.