Juventus have declared their interest in Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey and the Italian champions hope to beat off competition from rival European clubs to sign the midfielder on a free transfer in the summer.
The 28-year-old will be out of contract in June, with Arsenal having withdrawn their offer of terms last September. He is now free to negotiate with foreign clubs and sign a pre-contract.
Milan, Internazionale and Bayern Munich have expressed an interest, while there has long been talk Ramsey has a huge offer on the table from a Chinese club.
Juventus have made a clutch of big-name Bosman signings in recent years, namely Sami Khedira from Real Madrid, Dani Alves from Barcelona and Emre Can from Liverpool.
The Juventus sporting director, Fabio Paratici, said of Ramsey: “He’s a great player, we really like him and he plays for a great team. His contract is expiring and we’re always alerted to situations the market offers.”
Ramsey said in October he thought he had reached an agreement with Arsenal over a contract only for the club to perform a U-turn. He was quite clear about it being Arsenal’s decision to walk away from the talks.
The suspicion has been Unai Emery, the manager, does not fully trust Ramsey and, also, Arsenal did not want to push the boat out on a lucrative contract when they had other options in the centre of midfield. He has started only eight Premier League games this season.
Ramsey joined Arsenal from Cardiff in 2008 for £5m and is the club’s longest-serving player. He has won three FA Cups with them, scoring the winning goals in the 2014 and 2017 finals against Hull and Chelsea respectively.