Juventus Football Club S.p.A. announces that the agreement with Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. for the definitive acquisition of the registration rights of the Dutch player Eljero Elia has been finalized. The contract envisages the payment by Juventus of € 9 million in three instalments: € 4 million at the international transfer release, € 2.5 million on 31 January 2012 and € 2.5 million on 31 January 2013.
The purchase value may increase by a further of € 1 million on achieving given sports performances in the course of the duration of the contract.
Juventus and the player have signed a 4-year contract of employment.
Eljero Elia underwent a medical in Turin. Following an initial visit to Clinica Fornaca di Sessant, the Dutch winger has wrapped up his examinations at the Istituto di Medicina dello Sport.
After waving goodbye to their pre-season training camp at Pinzolo during the week, Juventus finally came up against their first test of the summer as they saw out a well fought stalemate against Hamburg.
In what proved to be a rather uneventful first period it was the Bundesliga outfit who went closest when Mladen Petric squandered the chance to fire into an empty net on the half hour mark.
Gigi Del Neri’s new look Juventus looked threatening going forward and Diego combined well with David Trezeguet to earn the Bianconeri a dangerous free-kick on the stroke of half time.
The Brazilian floated a wonderful effort over the wall, but the ball couldn’t drop fast enough as it zipped just over the bar leaving the deadlock unbroken.
After the break Marco Storari was beaten between the sticks when David Jarolim knocked a clever ball into the danger zone, but Vittorio Ferrero miraculously stole in front of Marcus Berg to clear off the goal line.
In the closing stages the German outfit maintained possession expertly and the Old Lady where clearly suffering the effects of fatigue. Del Neri’s men found themselves scrambling away the danger on numerous occasions and the attacking threat demonstrated in the opening period had all but faded.
The Bianconeri will next take on French giants Olimpique Lyonnais on July 24th as they continue to increase their work rate ahead of the Europa League preliminary rounds.