Zidane says he wants his career to end with Juventus

World Player of the Year Zinedine Zidane says he wants to stay at Juventus for the rest of his career.

The midfielder has told the Juventus web site that he has four to five more years left at top level and wants to finish his career with the Turin club following his acceptance of a new contract with Juve last September that is due to run out in June 2005.

Zidane also played down a recent revival of a story linking him with a summer move to Real Madrid.

French newspaper "Le Parisien" claimed last summer that there had been contact between the Juventus midfielder and FC Barcelona but SportsYa web site in Spain said two weeks ago that Real Madrid president Florentino Perez negotiated a first refusal with Zidane to leave Juventus for Real.

Real offered Zidane £7 million a season to play for them but Zidane agreed a new contract with Juve to keep him in Turin until 2005.

Any transfer talks stalled over Internet rights to Zidane's name in the past. Zidane - in common with many top stars today - has his own web site and merchandising contracts but Real have been signing up all their players and any new acquisitions to exclusive Internet rights deals.

Zidane does not want to cede these rights but initial talks with Perez went well while the property developer was successfully campaigning to oust Lorenzo Sanz as Real president.

The former Bordeaux star helped World Cup holders France win Euro 2000 last summer and was then talked about in Spain as a target for both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona as they went through presidential campaigns to find new leaders.

Real president Florentino Perez said in July that the club were not bidding for Zidane this summer but talks did take place in Paris in June witht Zidane's agent axeing the move over Internet rights but it now seems that some agreement was reached.

Zidane was unhappy that Juventus failed to match the spending of last season's title rivals SS Lazio and his wife was keen to move to Spain.

The 28 year old is in his fifth season with Juventus and agreed a new contract with the Turin club in September. It has long been believed that the Marseille-born player would like to return to France to live or maybe try Spain.

Zidane was part of the 1997 Juventus team that lost the Champions League final to Borussia Dortmund but he did help them to a 24th Italian championship that season.

He was again in a losing side in the Champions League final of 1998 when Real Madrid won 1-0 against the Italian club but was voted European Footballer of the Year after helping France to win the World Cup. He won the World Player vote in the same year and lifted that title again last month.

The midfielder said it would "close a circle" in his career at the Turin giants to win the European Cup this season but the Italian club crashed out of the first group phase of the competition with Zidane red carded twice.

Juventus are keen to build a new side with Zidane its major star.

The club have set aside £9.5 million to buy Atalanta midfielder Damiano Zenoni with talks already taking place to sign Perugia centre back Marco Materazzi after a bid from Bayern Munich forced Juve to double their efforts to sign the former Everton player.

Juventus also want to bring Luciano Zauri who plays alongside the talented Zenoni in Atalanta's midfield to Turin and Brescia's Aimo Diana is a defender under close scrutiny by the club who now only trail AS Roma by three points in the Italian championship.

Two other defenders - Brescia's Daniele Bonero and SS Napoli's Emanuele Troise - are also under consideration for offers in the next few weeks to try and set up summer moves.