Juventus To Announce New Deals For Giorgio Chiellini And Gianluigi Buffon

Juventus will hold a press conference today where it is expected the Serie A club will announce it has signed new deals with goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and defender Giorgio Chiellini. The contracts are expected to keep the players with the Italian champions until 2017 and 2018 respectively.

Various reports believe that Buffon will put pen to paper on a new deal which will keep the 36-year-old shot stopper in Turin until at least 2017, with the possibility of a further extension.

The Italian national team and Juventus captain arrived from Parma in 2001 for a record transfer fee of £32.6 million, which made him the most expensive player at his position of all time. Buffon holds the record for most clean sheets in Serie A, as well as with the Italian national team.

Meanwhile, details surrounding Chiellini’s contract are less specific. There are conflicting reports from separate Italian news organizations stating that the defender’s contract will run until 2018 or 2019. The 30-year-old Juventus vice-captain, who has been a part of one of the best defensive partnerships in Europe, is expected to see his new contract pay £2.4 million per year.

Former Inter Milan manager Walter Mazzarri once labeled Chiellini as a “force of nature”. Mazzarri described the defender by saying: “He’s a universal player that any coach would love to have on his team. He is from another planet; he can mark three players by himself.”

The Italian website Calciomercato reports that Buffon has accepted a slight decrease in wages – from £3.2 million to £2.8 million – in order to remain with the Old Lady.