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Now that Arthur Melo and Miralem Pjanic have finished their respective medical exams, the steps left to take before they join their new clubs is only a few very obvious ones.
Like, you know, signing their new contracts.
And after doing the medical part of the deal, you can probably guess putting their signature on some official club documents only seemed natural.
According to multiple Italian football journalists, that’s exactly what happened.
Fabrizio Romano of Sky Sport Italia and Goal Italia’s Romeo Agresti have both reported Sunday night that Arthur has put pen to paper on his fancy new five-year contract with Juventus that will run through 2025, with the latter adding Pjanic has also signed his deal with Barcelona. Earlier reports have stated that Arthur’s contract with Juventus will see him earn €5 million net per season, which has been viewed as a big tipping point when it comes to convincing the 23-year-old Brazilian to leave Barcelona.
#Juve: c’è la firma di #Arthur, annuncio ufficiale nelle prossime ore // Juve: Arthur has signed his contract with Juve. Official announcement expected in the coming hours ✍️ ⚪️⚫️
— Romeo Agresti (@romeoagresti) June 28, 2020
https://t.co/clK8LyAGSy
@GoalItalia
When, exactly, “in the coming hours” is remains to be seen. The general line of thinking is that it will be announced at some point over the next few days at the very most seeing as the fiscal year comes to a close at the end of June. Since this is an amortization kind of packaged deal, the benefit of doing it now rather than when we expect the actual transfer window to open up for business is rather obvious.
And, knowing how the transfer market is going to be impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, seeing this happen now with the arrival of Arthur to actually take place two months from now is pretty understandable.
It also makes you realize that Maurizio Sarri’s comment about Pjanic staying until the end of August means that it’s pretty much due to the fact that it’s when Juve’s Champions League obligations will come to a close. Or, basically, a hint that this transfer was never going to see either player switch teams immediately since both of them are currently in the midst of the final weeks of the 2019-20 season.