Tevez leaves China, signs for Boca Juniors for 3rd time

Paris (AFP) – Former Manchester United and Juventus striker Carlos Tevez agreed a move back to boyhood club Boca Juniors on Friday after 12 months in Chinese football with Shanghai Shenhua, the Argentine team announced.

“Tevez is coming home! He joined the team today and is already training with his teammates,” Boca said on its various social media accounts alongside a photo of the player working out in a gym.

It will be the 33-year-old’s third spell at Boca Juniors.

He was pictured in the gym wearing a Boca team shirt although the club did not reveal the value of the transfer.

Argentine news agency Telam had said earlier that Tevez had already negotiated what jersey he will wear at the Buenos Aires club — number 32.

Tevez joined Shenhua in January last year on an estimated 730,000 euros a week salary, making him one of the world’s highest-paid players.

A spokesman for Shenhua confirmed to AFP Friday that the club had been in talks with the globetrotting Argentine to end his contract.

Tevez scored only four goals in the Chinese championship during an injury-marred season in which he missed the Chinese Cup Final which his team won.

He was not in the squad for either leg of the final against Shanghai SIPG and flew back to Argentina just as his side lifted the trophy.

Tevez, who has often found it difficult to settle anywhere, saw his time in China unravel quickly.

He arrived in Shanghai a year ago to a hero’s welcome and was touted as a symbol of football’s fast rise in the country.

But he soon fell out of favour with Shenhua fans who questioned his fitness and commitment.

He earned the unflattering nickname “Very Homesick Boy”, a nod to past antics of jetting home to Argentina in times of strife, and he was accused of being overweight when new coach Wu Jingui took over at struggling Shenhua in September.

Wu later said that Tevez was working hard of his own volition to get fit and shed the bulk, but that did nothing to earn him a recall for the FA Cup final.