Maresca completes move to Juventus

29 January 2000

The sale of Maresca has been completed for a fee of £4.3 million, smashing the Albion transfer record to pieces. However, Albion will only receive some 80% of this amount, with the rest going to Enzo and his agent under the terms of the original agreement which brought him to the Hawthorns.

Chairman Paul Thompson flew out to Juventus on Friday along with John Wile, Dr John Evans, Enzo and his agent and Enzo's father - all at Juventus' expense (apparently it was easier for them to pay for our people to go out there because they had had a busy week of games). Negotiations went on late into the night, almost breaking down because the Italians wanted to pay less than the original amount - but Albion held their ground for a deal they were happy with. The fee doesn't arrive all at once, either - it will take around a year for us to get the whole sum. Albion failed, however, to negotiate a sell-on clause - which, apparently, is unusual in Italy.

It now remains to be seen how much of the fee becomes available to Brian Little in order to strengthen the team. Little has said that he feels that at least five new faces are needed to produce a team capable of pushing for promotion - just how far will the funds he receives move us towards that target?

Previous Stories:

  27 January 2000:  Maresca in Juventus switch?

  26 January 2000:  Tiny wee snippets of gossip

  21 January 2000:  Thompson looking for Clean Sweep

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