Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 4:41 PM• Jeroen van Poppel • Last update: 16:43

Juventus have finalized the arrival of Manuel Locatelli after protracted negotiations, Gianluca Di Marzio announced. The 23-year-old midfielder from Sassuolo comes over for a basic amount of thirty million euros and can become five million euros more expensive through bonuses.

Sassuolo cannot immediately credit that transfer fee, because the first two years Locatelli will be rented out to Juventus free of charge. Only then does the Italian international become definitively owned by means of a mandatory purchase option la Vecchia Signora. Some of the bonuses included are ‘hard to get’. Sassuolo also receives between ten and twenty percent of the amount in future resale.

Formally, Locatelli must extend his contract with Sassuolo by one year until mid-2024, because otherwise he will be transfer-free when the mandatory option to buy takes effect. Locatelli has been in the spotlight of Juventus since the beginning of the summer, who negotiated for months to free him from Sassuolo.

Locatelli comes from AC Milan’s youth academy, for which he made 63 official appearances between 2015 and 2018 (2 goals and 1 assist). After an initial rental period of a season, Sassuolo decided to definitively sign the controlling midfielder in 2019 for fourteen million euros. Locatelli has been an undisputed starting player at the club for three seasons, making 99 appearances so far (7 goals and 11 assists). With Italy, for which he has now played fifteen times, he became European champion this summer.