BARCELONA: Barcelona have agreed to sell Brazilian midfielder Arthur Melo (pix) to Juventus, the Spanish club announced on yesterday.
“The Italian club will pay 72 million euros (RM346m) plus 10 million euros (RM48m) in variables,” Barcelona said.
Arthur has been at Barcelona for two seasons, playing 72 games. When he arrived at the club he drew praise from former midfielder Xavi, who likened the player's style to his own, and from superstar attacker Lionel Messi.
Barcelona are expected to announce the signing of Juventus midfielder Miralem Pjanic in the coming days.
When Barcelona announced their budget for the 2019-20 season last September it included around 120 million euros to be raised from the sale of players this season.
They had fallen short of reaching that target and, in effect, swapping Pjanic for Arthur allows them to record the revenue in this financial year and put the Pjanic payments into the next financial year.
Arthur cannot play for Juventus until next season (2020/21) and it was originally believed that the 23-year-old would see out this season at Barcelona.
But an agreement with Juventus that he does not play for Barcelona again has not been ruled out. – dpa
