Bologna's club manager Marco Di Vaio hopes that Emanuele Giaccherini will fight his own corner to earn a stay at the Serie A club next season by convincing Sunderland to let him leave.
Giaccherini has been a regular under Roberto Donadoni since joining from the Black Cats on a season-long loan deal. The 30-year-old has scored seven times in 26 league appearances and is set to be one of the first names on Antonio Conte's Italy squad for the European Championship this summer.
Once that is complete, Giaccherini is due to return to Sunderland for the final year of his contract with the Premier League strugglers, although Bologna are keen on him coming back to them. The only snag could be a financial one, which is why Di Vaio hopes the winger can do some convincing work of his own.
"Signing Giaccherini permanently does not depend only on Sunderland, who don't need the money, but it comes a lot down to the player and how successful he is in making the English club understand what he wants to do," Di Vaio said to Radio Bruno.
Bologna do not have enough funds to match what would be a reasonable asking price for the Italian winger, which is why they hope to receive a significant discount if Giaccherini can convince them he does not want to fulfil the final 12 months of his contract in England's north-east.
Should Sunderland be relegated and miss out on their share of the income from a new lucrative television deal from next season, that could complicate Bologna's hopes of getting Giaccherini on a cut-price deal.
Di Vaio nevertheless says that money is there to be invested in the squad, even if he would prefer not to have to use most of it on one player.
"We don't have to sell players to have money to spend, but if we do sell anybody, then that money will go straight back into strengthening the squad," he said.