Hargreaves

LONDON (Reuters):

ENGLAND MIDFIELDER Owen Hargreaves will join Manchester United on July 1, the Premier League champions said yesterday.

The club said in a statement on its website www.manutd.com that it had agreed terms with Bayern Munich for the transfer and that the player had also agreed terms and passed a medical.

"Owen will formally sign his contract with Manchester United when he returns from his holiday at the end of June and will join on July 1," the statement said.

The club gave no details of the transfer fee but media reports had said Bayern would get €25 million (J$335 million) for the Canadian-born Hargreaves, which would be the highest fee paid for a Bundesliga player.

Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer said on May 20 that the fee was "in that range".

Hargreaves, 26, had been pleading with Bayern executives all season to let him go to United during a disappointing year for him and the club, who relinquished their Bundesliga title and finished fourth.

Rejected previous efforts

The German club had previously rejected United's efforts to acquire Hargreaves before the season and during the mid-season transfer window, saying they were not a bank and needed him.

Confirmation that Hargreaves, who joined Bayern as a 16-year-old, would move to United came a day after the club said it had agreed "terms in principle" to sign Sporting winger Nani and Porto's Brazilian playmaker Anderson.

Sporting put Nani's transfer fee at €25.5 million and Portuguese media reported that Anderson would cost a similar amount.