United is Veron's choice

Manchester United have won Juan Veron.

The player is to accept a five year contract which makes the midfielder the highest earning star in the Premiership.

Veron and his agent Gustavo Mascardi are to conclude talks with Manchester United next week and the English champions expect Veron to sign for them after Mascardi made contact with United last January.

Inter called Juan Veron within minutes of his acquittal for faking documents to earn an Italian passport yesterday.

The Milan club called the player on holiday in Miami and his agent Gustavo Mascardi who is with him and are ready to pay £26 million for the Argentine midfield star.

Lazio definitely do not want to release Veron to an Italian rival and if they do sell the player then United have a long lead on any other bid and can look forward to signing Veron at the start of July.

SS Lazio are to sell Veron after he was cleared of wrongdoing in the Italian passport scandal which saw several players banned this week.

Veron and the Rome club's president Sergio Cragnotti were facing a two year ban that would taint their championship win of last season.

Veron, Sergio Cragnotti and directors Nello Governato and Felice Pulici all faced charges over falsifying documents to gain an Italian passport for the Argentine midfielder and flout Italian league rules on quotas for foreign players.

Pulici is banned for two years.

Cargnotti is now appealing against the sentences imposed by the FIGC.

A court hearing on October 11th will decide if criminal charges are to follow against Cragnotti, Veron and other Lazio officials.

Veron helped Lazio to their first title win since 1974 and an Italian Cup victory and has led them into title contention again this season.

The player's agent has been in talks with Manchester United over a £23 million transfer that depends on Veron escaping a long ban.

United denied media reports that they had signed Veron this month but talks had taken place throughout this year and United were waiting for the passport scandal result before moving to clinch the signing.

Veron does face civil trial on October 11th along with club president Sergio Cragnotti over his claims to be an Italian citizen.

Manchester United were trying to provide an escape route for the player to leave Italy after his last year with Lazio became dogged by charges that the Rome club and the player's agents conspired to falsify Italian citizenship documents.

Prosecutor for the Italian Football League's disciplinary committee Carlo Porceddu said the player should get a two year ban which would be worldwide although a one year ban was more likely as happened to Inter striker Alvaro Recoba. with Mascardi in talks over a £24 million transfer that depended on Veron escaping a long ban.

Lazio and Veron applied for an Italian passport to allow the Rome club to field an extra non-EU player during their successful championship campaign last year.

Court hearings in March and April decided there had been wrongdoing after Lazio traced Veron's family tree to a great grandmother in southern Italy.

Veron denied in January that he wanted to leave Lazio and join Real Madrid but the club may be prepared to off load their midfield star to finance rebuilding under coach Dino Zoff in the summer.

One way to end the scandal was for Veron to leave Lazio and put the events of the last two years in the past although any buying club knows Veron is due in court to answer a case in October.

The £24 million move for Veron smashes the current British transfer record which stands at £19 million for striker Ruud van Nistelrooy paid by United to PSV Eindhoven in April.

Veron's agent made contact with United and Liverpool on a trip to the UK in January of this year to start their interest in a move for the powerful midfielder.

Mascardi has made the offer to the richest English clubs to start negotiations with the Italian champions who have been resisting interest from Real Madrid in 26 year old Veron. The player has spent two seasons in Rome after a move from Parma AC for £18 million. Before that he was with Genoa side Sampdoria.

He is regarded as one of the best midfielders in the modern game and should be one of the main stars of the 2002 World Cup finals. He has captained Argentina to a healthy lead in their CONMEBOL qualifying section.

Lazio pay Veron £80,000 a week plus extravagant bonuses and United have matched this and broken open their pay structure to do it.

New contracts for Phil Neville, Jaap Stam, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Andy Cole have all been kept within the current pay structure which keeps captain Roy Keane as the club's highest earner. Veron's wages are nearly double those of Keane with only David Beckham testing the current structure.

United can pay even higher wages but the effect of a Veron deal on talks with Beckham and the pay scale at the Premiership champions would have to be considered.

After missing out on Lilian Thuram in recent weeks though, United are in the mood to buy proven quality.

Thuram went to Juventus and United have seen Arsenal say that they will not sell Patrick Vieira to the English champions while Emmanuel Petit has joined Chelsea and Zinedine Zidane is going to Real Madrid.