Juventus’ new acquisition Arthur Melo wants to get out of his Barcelona contract as soon as possible.
Earlier this summer, Juventus negotiated a swap deal with Barcelona, sending veteran regista Miralem Pjanic to the Catalan club in exchange for young ball-carrying center midfielder Arthur Melo, who can help transform the Bianconeri’s attack.
While Pjanic is an effective player who is still recording assists for Juve as they secured their ninth straight Scudetto, Arthur is seen as an upgrade, especially over the long term.
And it sounds like Juve could get their new young midfield star sooner than expected.
According to a report from Goal.com’s Ignasi Oliva Gispert, Arthur has no intention to play for Barcelona ever again. He’s told La Blaugrana that he does not want to play for them in the 2019-2020 Champions League, as Barça are in the competition with a second leg Round of 16 fixture scheduled against Serie A side Napoli.
Arthur returned to his home country of Brazil when Barcelona manager Quique Setien gave the team a break, and he’s reportedly not coming back to Camp Nou.
There seems to be no way Arthur can get out of playing for Barcelona in the Champions League if he’s still under contract, but in his new deal with Chelsea, Timo Werner did negotiate a move from RB Leipzig to the Blues during the 2019-2020 Champions League campaign despite both clubs also still being in the competition.
This is just the latest incident for Barcelona to deal with, as the Catalan club has proven to be in total disarray. They lost La Liga by a few points to Real Madrid, and they now may lose a key part of their Champions League squad, barring cooler heads prevailing.
As for Juventus, they can be sure that Arthur will be 100 percent committed to the cause and ready to star alongside Rodrigo Bentancur and, perhaps, Adrien Rabiot in a midfield that should be quite dynamic for a change.