Former Arsenal captain, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang may have reasons to smile again, after he reached an agreement with Barcelona FC to join the Club following the termination of his contract with Arsenal FC.
Barcelona on Wednesday announced they had signed 32 year-old Gabon striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang until June 2025 as a free agent.
But his release clause is put at €100 million.
“It’s Auba time!” declared the club in a tweet which included a video of Aubameyang declaring “I’m here Barcelona fans! Forza Barca!”
“The player will sign a contract until June 30, 2025, with an option to agree departure on June 30, 2023,” said the club on their web site.
His previous club, Arsenal, on Tuesday released Aubameyang. That cleared the way for the striker, who was already in Spain, to sign for Barcelona as a free agent outside the transfer window which closed on Monday night.
Aubameyang is believed to have taken a significant cut on his Arsenal wage, which started at around 300,000 euros (US$337,000) a week.
The player will sign a contract until 30 June 2025 with an option to agree departure on 30 June 2023 and his buy out clause will be set at 100 million euros.
Shortly the Club will provide details of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s presentation as a first team player.
Born in Laval (Mayenne, France) on 18 June 1989, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has triple nationality: Spanish, French and Gabonese, but plays internationally for Gabon. The 32-year-old has experience of playing in several European countries.
After being at several clubs as a youth, including AC Milan, Aubameyang made his senior debut in 2008/09 at Dijon in the French second division, on loan at the time from the Italian outfit. He caught the eye of a number of Ligue 1 teams, and would have spells at Lille (2009/10), AS Monaco (2010/11) and Saint Etienne (2011/13).
His next port of call was Borussia Dortmund in 2013, where he spent four and a half seasons, scoring 141 goals to earn his reputation as one of the sharpest shooters in the continent, topping the Bundesliga goalscoring charts in 2017 with 31 goals.
In the 2018 winter transfer window, he left for Arsenal, where he has been for the last four years. He was top goalscorer in the Premiership in 2019 with 22 goals.
On an individual level, he has been named African Player of the Year in 2015 and Bundesliga Player of the Year in 2016.
His various team titles include the French League Cup with Saint Etienne (2013), the German Cup with Dortmund (2017) and the FA Cup with Arsenal (2020).
He has 72 full international caps for Gabon, scoring 30 goals.
Aubameyang is a remarkably fast striker and has an eye for goal, having racked up over 300 as a professional. His powerful but accurate shooting have made him one of the most feared goal-getters in the European game.
He is versatile enough to play anywhere in attack, sometimes out wide and sometimes in the centre. His height (1.87m) coupled with his strength and acceleration mean he is especially dangerous when given space to move in. He is also a fine dribbler, reads the game to perfection and is extremely adept at producing combination moves out of nowhere.
Auba’s new club Barca continue to be hampered by enormous debts, which amount to more than a billion euros.
They sit fifth in La Liga, a point behind Atletico Madrid, who they play at home on Sunday, when Aubameyang could make his debut.
Aubameyang joined Arsenal from Borussia Dortmund on the last day of the 2018 January transfer window for a reported 56 million pounds, a club record at the time.
In almost exactly four years at the club, he appeared in 165 competitive games and scored 92 goals
But his form had dipped rapidly since signing a three-year contract that reportedly made him the Premier League’s highest earner at the time in September 2020.
Aubameyang was dropped for a north London derby last season for arriving late for a team meeting and was stripped of the captaincy in December for what Arsenal described as “his latest disciplinary breach”.
In January, Aubameyang was part of the Gabon squad at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon but missed the first two games with coronavirus before being sent home after team medical staff said they had detected “cardiac lesions”.
The British Press Association reported that Arsenal delayed announcing Aubameyang’s departure as a gesture of respect to Barcelona, whose president, Joan Laporta, said on Tuesday that the official unveiling may come later in the week.
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