On Wednesday, Romelu Lukaku completed his season-long loan transfer from Chelsea to Roma after being hailed as a hero by fans.
Roma has not yet made an official statement, but Serie A’s list of completed transactions indicates that the deal is final.
After arriving at Ciampino airport, just outside the Italian city, on Tuesday, thousands of supporters met Belgium striker Romelu Kaku. His presence came as a relief to Roma after a rocky start to the new Serie A season.
According to Italian sources, Chelsea agreed to sign outcast Lukaku for the 2018–19 campaign for roughly six million euros ($6.5 million), providing the Italians the striker they’ve been searching for since Tammy Abraham suffered knee ligament injury at the conclusion of the last campaign.
In order to join Roma, who are operating under a Financial Fair Play settlement deal negotiated with UEFA, Lukaku has agreed to accept a wage reduction from about 11 million euros to around 7.5 million euros.
Roma’s failure to turn dominance into goals was clearly on show during Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Verona, which was their only point from their first two games.
Chelsea, meantime, has spent the whole summer attempting to permanently dump Lukaku in an effort to stop the catastrophic signing that cost the Premier League side both his enormous yearly wage and a 115 million euro purchase price from Inter Milan.
However, negotiations with Inter, where he was loaned back last season, apparently broke down when the team learned he had been covertly speaking to Juve and AC Milan, two of their greatest rivals.
Instead, he has reconnected with Manchester United’s Jose Mourinho, his former head coach, as the city club attempts to return to the Champions League for the first time since 2018.