Transfer news: Jozy Altidore 'inherits' Jermain Defoe's £80,000-a-week deal at Toronto

Sunderland have been eager to offload the American, who has managed just one league goal since he signed in July 2013 for £6.5m

Jozy Altidore failed to find the net in the league this season (Getty Images)

The struggling Sunderland striker Jozy Altidore will see his wages rise to the equivalent of £80,000 a week when he joins Toronto FC as part of the deal that will see Jermain Defoe come in the other direction. The former England striker will earn the same amount in a three-and-a-half-year deal.

Altidore, who has scored just once for Sunderland this season, in the Capital One Cup, will effectively inherit the MLS deal that Defoe had in Canada. Sunderland have been eager to offload the American, who has managed just one league goal, three in total, since he signed in July 2013 for £6.5m. He has been allowed to leave for nothing to get him off the wage bill.

As for Defoe, he passed a medical today and will join manager Gus Poyet, whom he played with for a short period at Tottenham at the start of the striker’s career. The pair have remained close.

That relationship was key to Sunderland securing the deal, with interest in Defoe from Queen’s Park Rangers and Leicester City. The price paid for the 32-year-old reflects the lack of proven Premier League strikers available in this transfer window and the demand for goalscorers among the league’s struggling teams.