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By Richard Martin
BARCELONA, June 29 (Reuters). Barcelona has reached an agreement to sell Brazilian midfielder Arthur Melo to Italian champions Juventus for a fee of EUR 72 million, La Liga said on Monday.
The 23-year-old, commonly known simply as Arthur, will stay at Camp Nou until the end of the 2019/20 season, which has been extended to August due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, before moving to Turin.
The transfer will help Barca achieve its goal of an additional 70 million euros in sales from player sales before June 30th. This is in line with the budget that club members approved in October last year and forecasted earnings from transfers of 124 million euros.
Barcelona has the highest income in world football, but its finances were hit by the COVID 19 pandemic, which affected ticket sales, television rights, and merchandising. As a result, the club introduced a 70% wage cut for players in April.
Arthur joined Barca from the Brazilian Gremio team in July 2018 and was initially celebrated as the heir to the former Xavi Hernandez club. Lionel Messi said he was surprised at the player’s resemblance to the team’s former puppet master.
Despite a promising opening game, Arthur only had 19 league starts in his first season with the club and 14 this season, and coach Quique Setien said earlier this month that he had not lived up to expectations.
There were also problems out of the field.
In March 2019, he apologized for traveling to Paris during the season to attend the Brazilian teammate Neymar’s birthday party. Last December, the Catalan television broadcaster announced that Arthur went snowboarding with a groin injury.
$ 1 = 0.8891 euros reporting by Hardik Vyas in Bengaluru and Richard Martin in Barcelona; Edited by Ken Ferris
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