Juventus could be the latest European powerhouse to visit Australia, with a friendly against Perth Glory being negotiated for August 2020.
An official announcement could be made as early as next week, with the Glory looking to host the Italian giants after successful friendlies against Chelsea and Manchester United.
Part of the deal also includes Cristiano Ronaldo, who last played in Australia with Real Madrid in 2015 as part of the International Champions Cup.
Perth Glory owner Tony Sage says the club will look to build on the success from their friendlies against Manchester United and Chelsea, which reached global audiences.
“We’ve done a fantastic video inviting teams to Perth which we’ve sent that was with the Manchester United, the Grand Final and Chelsea packaged together with things about Perth,” he told FNR.
“We’ve also used that video to entice Juventus and it looks like they’re coming here in August 2020 with Ronaldo, so that’s after the Euros next year.
“It worked with Juventus, hopefully we get that inked late next week and we can officially announce they’re coming out, so we do try to punch above our weight over here.
“There was one survey out recently that Perth’s the most recognised Australian team in the world, it wasn’t done by us that was interesting because of the Chelsea and Man Utd game.
“It was heavily publicised in Europe, over 300 million viewers watched that on Man Utd TV.”
The Glory have also been linked with signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a guest-marquee, which would see the Swedish international feature in five matches over a six-week period.
Should he sign, the Glory intend to feature him in their Grand Final rematch against Sydney FC on November 23 – which would be moved to Optus Stadium.
“We’re just going through the numbers with the agent…it’s not quite yet done there are a lot of finances to be fully discussed,” Mr Sage said.
“It will only be for five games in a six-week period under the guest rule requirements because we already have two marquees with [Diego] Castro and [Bruno] Fornaroli.
“The timing is perfect, we play Melbourne Victory, Western Sydney and Sydney in that period so they’ll all be blockbuster games.
“To do that we’ll obviously have to compromise so for one game we’d move out of HBF Park and take it to Optus [Stadium].
“We’ve already spoken to Optus about helping out financially to bring him out.”
