Barcelona midfielder Arthur has joined Juventus in a transfer of up to 82 million euros, the two clubs announced Monday, with Miralem Pjanic ready to move in the other direction.
Pjanic’s transfer to Barça will be announced soon, sources told ESPN, and the Bosnia and Herzegovina midfielder is expected to cost the Catalan club around 60 million euros. Juve will pay Barça 72 million euros for Arthur with another 10 million euros in possible accessories.
Stream LIVE games, replays on ESPN +
– Inner notebook: Bale, Zidane at the breaking point
Both players will remain with their sides for the duration of their respective national campaigns, while also being available for the Champions League in August, presenting a scenario in which they may have to play against their future clubs in Lisbon.
Arthur, 23, agreed to a five-year contract with Juve, and sources told ESPN that he will earn significantly more than he currently earns at Barça. The Brazilian international was in Turin on Sunday, where he underwent a medical examination and signed his contract.
He returned to Barcelona to train on Monday and told his teammates before Tuesday’s game against Atlético Madrid at the Camp Nou that he would continue to give everything until he leaves for Juve at the end of the season.
Throughout the negotiations, Arthur, a transfer of 30 million euros from Gremio in 2018, had always expressed his desire to stay at Barça. However, the pressure exerted by the club, in addition to Juve’s generous offer, finally forced him to change his mind.
Compared to Xavi in his first months at Barça, club sources told ESPN that “there is a feeling that Arthur has stagnated in the past year, however the main reason for the sale is financial.
As reported by ESPN in May, Barça needed to generate around € 70 million in player sales by June 30. There were a number of reasons for that, including the fact that the budget had meant € 124 million in sales for the 2019-20 season.
Meanwhile, due to accumulated losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, the board of directors faced the possibility of recording large losses for the financial year.
That could have subjected them to action by club members, while they may even find themselves in a position where they must personally guarantee any future losses due to the complicated legislation surrounding the ownership model of member-owned clubs in Spain.
However, they will expect the money deposited in Arthur’s sale to save them that, while Pjanic’s fee will pay off over the course of his contract.
It is not the first time that you have come up with an imaginative way to balance your accounts. They used the same method last June when they traded Jasper Cillessen for the Valencia Neto goalkeeper in separate deals worth around € 30 million each.
Barça tried to sign Pjanic several times in recent seasons, but the negotiations intensified with Juve, who also needed to balance their accounts, in the last two months.
The two clubs and Pjanic, whose sources said ESPN is excited to join Barça, quickly struck a deal, but Arthur remained adamant that he wanted to stay in Spain.
He released a statement in April explaining that he was not going anywhere and, as reported by ESPN, in May he told Barça and Juve that he had no intention of getting involved in any deal.
However, with both clubs still searching for the deal, and seeing how Barça was pushing for him to leave, Arthur finally made a U-turn in his decision and gave the green light to the transfer.
Arthur, who is seven years younger than Pjanic, was also won in the end by Maurizio Sarri’s wish to take him to Turin. The Juve coach imagines him as the centerpiece of his advancing midfield.
Meanwhile, Pjanic, 30, will sign a four-year contract with Barça, leaving Juve four years after signing with Roma. Before that, he had practiced his trade in France, playing for Lyon and Metz.
.
