Juventus have sold France midfielder Patrick Vieira to Inter Milan for 9.5 million euros (US$12.1 million), less than half what they paid for him a year ago.
Juventus said in a statement that they had booked a capital loss of 8.6 million euros on the sale, part of an exodus of players from the Turin club following a match-fixing scandal that led to their demotion to the second-tier Serie B league.
Inter confirmed the deal, saying Vieira had signed a four-year contract that would tie him to the club until June 2010.
PHOTO: AFP
Juve bought Vieira in July last year for 20 million euros from Arsenal. He played for Juventus only for one season in 2005-2006.
Vieira, a candidate to take over from Zinedine Zidane as captain of France's national side, is the latest player to leave Juventus after the club were relegated to Serie B for conspiring with referees and linesmen to rig games during last season.
Inter were awarded the 2005-2006 Italian league title last week after a sports tribunal revoked Juventus' title win.
Vieira returned to Italy last year, having been signed by Arsenal from Inter's city rivals AC Milan in 1996.
The combative 30-year-old, a 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 winner with France, moved to Turin after helping Arsenal win seven major trophies in nine years in north London.
His crunching tackles, deft ball control and unhurried distribution marked Arsenal's Senegal-born captain out as one of the best midfielders in English football.
His duels with former Manchester United skipper Roy Keane became a highlight of the Premier League season and Vieira was frequently linked with a move to Real Madrid.
A desire for a new challenge and a hunger for success in the Champions League, whose quarter-finals had proved an insurmountable obstacle for Arsenal, were behind his move back to Italy.
Ironically, Arsenal reached the final last season, losing to Barcelona after knocking Juventus out in the quarter-finals. Vieira was booked on his return to Highbury in Juve's 2-0 defeat and missed the second leg through suspension.
More recently, he helped France reach the World Cup final, lost on penalties to Italy, and looked set to stay with Juventus until the verdicts handed down in Italy's match-rigging scandal.
Vieira "is very motivated, but at the same time sorry for what happened to Juventus, a club in which he had settled in very well," agent Franco Granello told the Apcom news agency.
Granello said Vieira cited financial reasons for leaving Juve.
"Vieira chose Inter because the club made the most important offer both from a contractual point of view and from the point of view of its plans," Granello said.
Granello acknowledged that Real Madrid had expressed interest in Vieira but at an advanced stage in the negotiations with Inter.
Juventus has already lost Gianluca Zambrotta, Lilian Thuram, Emerson and Fabio Cannavaro. Defenders Zambrotta and Thuram moved to FC Barcelona. Midfielder Emerson and defender Cannavaro joined former Juventus coach Fabio Capello at Real Madrid.
Inter’s defense of their Italian Serie A title was hit with a setback on Sunday as they lost 1-0 at home to AS Roma, while Scott McTominay netted a brace as SSC Napoli beat Torino 2-0 to go top of the table. No fixtures were played on Friday or Saturday because of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, meaning the full round of Serie A matches took place on Sunday and yesterday. Matias Soule’s first-half strike for Roma knocked Inter off top spot earlier in the day before new Napoli opened up a three-point buffer with victory in Sunday’s
FOCUS: ‘We came out here with a goal in mind ... to keep our foot on their throat and on their neck, and continue to play 48 minutes of basketball,’ Donovan Mitchell said The Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday thrashed the Miami Heat to cruise into the next round of the NBA playoffs as the Golden State Warriors battled past the Houston Rockets 109-106 to move to the brink of a series victory. After pounding Miami 124-87 in game three on Saturday, No.1 Eastern Conference seeds Cleveland once again piled on the misery for their outclassed opponents with a crushing 138-83 victory to complete a 4-0 series win. The 55-point drubbing was the largest series-clinching victory in NBA playoff history and sets up a series against either the Indiana Pacers or Milwaukee Bucks in
Freddie Freeman homered and drove in four runs, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and Roki Sasaki earned his first major league win as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 10-3 on Saturday night for their seventh straight victory. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the series to improve to 5-0 against Atlanta this year. Los Angeles’ three-game sweep at home early in the season left the Braves 0-7. Sasaki allowed three runs and six hits over five innings. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up a home run to Ozzie Albies, but received plenty of offensive support in his
Shuttler Lin Chun-yi yesterday kept Taiwan on the board as they faced their first major challenge of the group stage after marching into the last eight at the Sudirman Cup Finals in Xiamen, China. Taiwan were losing 3-1 to South Korea as of press time last night, with only the men’s doubles match remaining. Taiwan and four-time champions South Korea have already progressed to the quarter-finals, after Taiwan on Monday blanked the Czech Republic 5-0 without giving up a single game. Before last night’s tie, Taiwan were undefeated in Group B, with a 9-1 match record, ahead of South Korea, who, although also
RSS