Tottenham Hotspur confirm signing of defender Kevin Wimmer

Tottenham Hotspur have confirmed the signing of defender Kevin Wimmer from Cologne.

Wimmer, 22, has signed a five-year contract at White Hart Lane and will become the club's first arrival of the summer transfer window when on July 1.

Tottenham have been in talks with the Austria international since March and a deal is understood to have been in place for some time.

The defender himself confirmed a move was close to completion last week following Cologne's final game of the season against Wolfsburg.

"I go to Tottenham to go to the next level of my career," he said. "It is the next step in my development. I do not mind if they play next season in the Europa League."

Wimmer will arrive in north London for a reported fee of £4.3m, a signing that would appear to be the first example of Tottenham's reconsidered transfer policy coming into play.

A meeting between club chairman Daniel Levy and the Tottenham Supporters' Trust in April provided the first indication the club would return to their 'comfort zone' of targeting young players for smaller fees of no more than £15m.

The minutes from that meeting, posted on the Supporters' Trust's website read: "THFC's transfer comfort zone was with younger players around the £10m-15m price range and they would look to return to that policy.

"[It] was felt that moving away from this strategy in summer 2013 hadn't worked well for THFC, however, [Daniel Levy] was keen to stress the club had backed the coach [Andre Villas-Boas] and technical director [Franco Baldini] with those purchases."

Further to that, Levy wrote in the club's match programme ahead of their final game of the 2014-15 season the club would continue to back Mauricio Pochettino in the summer transfer window but ruled out overspending.

"We have restructured the footballing side of the club to ensure our sporting philosophy is adhered to – we need to ensure that we have a balance of experienced and home grown players, playing attacking, entertaining football our fans love to watch," he wrote in the matchday programme before the 2-0 win over Hull City.

"Perhaps we had lost our way a little bit in this respect, so this will be our guiding principle as we embark on the summer transfer window.

"We are all eager to be challenging at a higher level. While the popular view may be to spend money in excess of earnings or find a philanthropic investor to fund transfers, those scenarios are simply not possible under the new world of Financial Fair Play rules whereby clubs can only spend revenues generated through operations.

"That said, this summer we shall look to make changes to support Mauricio's plans for next season."