OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Juventus striker Simone Zaza signs with West Ham United

Transfer rumors no more. Simone Zaza’s future is now officially more than just paper talk and a bunch of tweets going back and forth between followers of Juventus.

Zaza, who arrived at Juventus from Sassuolo 13 months ago, will now be wearing his third jersey in the past three seasons. That’s due to the fact that the 25-year-old Italian international striker has finished and finalized his move to West Ham United on Sunday, joining the London-based club on a season-long loan with a mandatory option to buy come next summer.

Here are more details, courtesy of the good folks at Juventus’ official website:

Juventus Football Club can today confirm that Simone Zaza has joined English Premier League side West Ham United on an initial one-season loan deal for a fee of €5 million.

Providing Zaza makes a certain number of first-team appearances during the 2016/17 campaign, West Ham will definitively acquire his registration rights for €20 million, to be paid in two financial years.

The overall fee of this permanent transfer may increase by a further €3 million should certain conditions stipulated within the agreement be met.

You can find photographic of said signing here:

Done and done. All of the rumors can end and we can finally move on with things. No more wondering if a deal will actually go through. There was no last-minute dealings with other players that saw Zaza’s proposed move fall apart just when it looked like it was done. Zaza and his clean-shaven dome is the latest player to leave Turin this summer.

Zaza, used mostly off the bench last season by Max Allegri, was looking at another year as a full-time reserve with Juventus adding the likes of Marko Pjaca and Gonzalo Higuain this summer. That caused the exit rumors that have been ever-present since his first couple weeks as a Juventus player to become almost a daily occurrence over the last month or two. First it looked like he was destined for Germany before a move to Wolfsburg fell through as they chose to sign former Fiorentina striker Mario Gomez instead. Once that happened, West Ham became a legitimate option once again.

The Hammers pounced as Juve director general Beppe Marotta didn’t mess with us when he said that the club had a couple of other options to weigh in regard to Zaza’s future.

Best of luck in England, Simone. We’ll always have that game-winning goal against Napoli in front of the Juventus Stadium crowd. Let’s hope that the next couple of players that Juventus buy from Sassuolo are able to stay for a little while longer.