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Acquittal of Veron clears way for United transfer

Alan Nixon
Thursday 28 June 2001 00:00 BST
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Manchester United's eyes turned towards Italy yesterday when Juan Sebastian Veron was acquitted by the Italian football league's disciplinary commission of providing false papers to obtain a European Union passport.

More than a dozen other players received suspensions, but the Argentinian midfielder was cleared of the charge against him, giving United the green light to sign him. The Old Trafford club have already agreed a £24m fee with Lazio and his wages of around £80,000-a-week were also agreed at a meeting with his agent.

It appears, however, that Veron will have to wait for United to sign him – as Sir Alex Ferguson would prefer to buy Arsenal's Patrick Vieira and has set a deadline for the transfer saga involving the Gunners midfielder. Ferguson will give Vieira and his agent, Marc Roger, until 31 August, the final day for eligibility to play in the first phase of the Champions' League.

Vieira wants to go to United but Arsenal will fight bitterly to keep him. They would only do business if they got David Beckham or Roy Keane in an exchange deal.

United will only complete the Veron deal when either Vieira is sold somewhere else or the deadline passes. So Veron has to be patient, but that should not be too testing given that the fear of a two-year ban from football has been lifted. There is the intriguing possibility that United could end up with both Vieira and Veron.

Aside from Ruud van Nistelrooy, United have failed to land any of their transfer targets – the French defender Lilian Thuram opted to join Juventus, while Bayern Munich blocked any move for his compatriot Bixente Lizarazu – and Peter Kenyon's "don't panic" message in response has alluded to more differences between the board and Sir Alex, who has said he will sever all ties with the club when he resigns as manager next year. The insistence of Kenyon, United's chief executive, that the squad needs just the "odd tweak" clearly contradicts Ferguson's assessment.

Another player United are closing in on is the Wigan Athletic goalkeeper Roy Carroll. Leicester City and Everton are both in the market for the Northern Ireland international, but Ferguson has set up the surprise move and hopes to agree a £2.5m deal with the Latics this week.

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