Manchester United winger Angel di Maria is to join Paris Saint-Germain on a four-year deal to become the second-most expensive player in French league history.
A person familiar with the situation said that Di Maria is expected in Paris later this week to sign the deal after undergoing a medical exam in Doha on Monday.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the deal before it is official.
Photo: AP
Manchester United have agreed to sell the Argentina winger for a fee that is “in the region of 63 million euros” (US$69 million) the person said.
At PSG, the versatile Di Maria will be teaming up with Uruguay striker Edinson Cavani, who joined the Qatari-funded club for a reported fee of 64 million euros when PSG broke the French transfer record in 2013.
The former Real Madrid midfielder joined United for £59.7 million (US$99 million) last summer as the most expensive signing in the history of British soccer, but he had an inconsistent season at Old Trafford.
Di Maria got off to a bright start early in the season then struggled to adapt to the Premier League. The man of the match in last year’s Champions League final was quickly reduced to a second-fiddle role in Louis van Gaal’s side and ended the season with a meager tally of three goals in 27 Premier League appearances.
However, his 10 assists were only bettered by Chelsea’s Cesc Fabregas.
Di Maria, who will be reunited with Argentina teammates Javier Pastore and Ezequiel Lavezzi in Paris, did show signs of his very best with his national team at the Copa America, where Argentina finished runner-ups this summer.
PSG, whose main goal this season is to win the Champions League, will be counting on his energy, incisive dribbles and ability to run with the ball at pace to reach a new level on the European scene, where the French champions failed to advance beyond the quarter-finals over the past two seasons.
He will give PSG coach Laurent Blanc plenty of offensive options, either on the left side of the midfield or in a more central role.
PSG started to court Di Maria last summer, but UEFA financial fair play restrictions, which have since been eased, prevented his transfer to the French capital.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier