Barcelona striker Luis Suarez is set to join rival camp Atletico Madrid after both Barcelona and Atletico Madrid reached an agreement for a £5.5m deal.
Suarez, who still has a year left on the contract he signed with Barca in 2016, has been told by new coach Ronald Koeman last month that he was not part of his plans.
A statement on Barca’s official website rread: “FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have reached an agreement for the transfer of the player Luis Suarez.
“The Madrid club will pay FC Barcelona 6m euros in variables.
“FC Barcelona would like to publicly express their gratitude to Luis Suarez for his commitment and dedication and wishes him all the best for the future.
“On Thursday 24 September from 12.30pm CEST there will be a farewell event for the player and following that a remote press conference. You can see all the day’s event surrounding the Uruguayan striker’s goodbye live on Barça TV+, FC Barcelona’s official digital streaming platform.”
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Initially, it was thought Suarez was close to moving to Italian champions Juventus but delays in obtaining Italian citizenship put the brakes on a potential deal.
Italian financial police and the Perugia public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into allegations of irregularities regarding Suarez’s citizenship exam last week.
Suarez, allegedly, was aware of the contents of the exam before taking it and that his score was pre-assigned.
Juventus have already reached their quota for non-EU players could not recruit Suarez without an Italian passport and have signed Alvaro Morata on a season loan from Atletico on Tuesday.
Juve is set to pay Atletico an initial loan fee of €10m (£9.2m) and have the option to extend the loan for an additional 12 months, plus the option to buy.
Should Juventus take up the option to buy the former Chelsea and Real Madrid striker at the end of this season he will cost €45m.
However, if they opt to extend the loan for an additional year, Juventus would have to pay an extra €10m with the transfer fee at the end of that period subsequently costing €35m.
Alvaro Morata has a previous spell with Juventus and spent two seasons from 2014 to 2016
