Juventus have opened formal talks with Manchester City to sign Carlos Tevez in the form of a series of telephone calls direct to Roberto Mancini from Pavel Nedved, a key director for the Italian club.
Nedved, the former Czech Republic international, has spoken to Mancini several times to instigate discussions about the Argentina international. The Serie A club have proposed a £21m package but City are hopeful they can get more than that in the face of rival interest from Milan and Paris St-Germain.
Tevez's preference would be to join Milan but all they have proposed is a loan deal to the end of the season, leading to a possible £17.2m move next summer. Milan's vice-president, Adriano Galliani, said on Wednesday night that "offer is final" but City are adamant they will not entertain the idea of a loan and there is scepticism at the Etihad Stadium about whether Milan have the financial power to return with a suitable offer.
PSG certainly have the money, backed by Qatari owners, but so far they, too, have not come up with an offer good enough to tempt the City chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, to sell a player who has been on strike since flying to Argentina without permission on 8 November.
Mubarak wants to get a fee of around £25m and is willing to hold out for that figure despite City's eagerness to get Tevez off their books and lose the £250,000-a-week salary he earns via a contract that stipulates he is always the club's best-paid player. After that City's lawyers will look at what action can be taken against Tevez for allegedly breaching his contract, although what that will entail is not yet clear.
A complicated picture was further clouded on Wednesday night by Tevez saying he potentially wants to stay in Argentina. He told the magazine Gente in his homeland that he would like to "go to pre-season with Boca [Juniors] and play Libertadores with them". That tournament runs from late January to early July.
"I don't care if I lose money," Tevez was quoted as saying. "I'm tired of travelling and going back and forth. I'm not coming back to England." Boca, though, are unlikely to be able to meet City's asking price.
Tevez's talk of remaining in Argentina comes despite his adviser, Kia Joorabchian, trying to get him a move to one of Europe's leading clubs. Joorabchian has been to Milan for a meeting with Galliani and City's belief is that the player's financial terms have been agreed. That will be of no use, however, unless Milan can demonstrate they have the money to accede to City's wishes to arrange a permanent deal.
Instead Juventus have led City to believe they do have the financial clout at a time when the Turin club are top of Serie A and going for a record 28th championship.
That may constitute a surprise considering that Juventus are no longer known for their vast expenditure – their transfer record is still the £32.6m they paid to sign the goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon from Parma in 2001 – and they would almost certainly have to break what has until now been a tight wage structure, with several of their higher earners re-signing on lower salaries.
Their manager, Antonio Conte, already has seven strikers and five wingers in his squad but Nedved has assured Mancini that the interest is serious and further talks will be held to try to reach a compromise fee. Tevez is aware he will have to take a substantial pay cut to get a new club, possibly slashing his wages by more than half.
The alternative is that his career continues to go to waste. Tevez has not played since a Carling Cup tie against Birmingham City on 23 September and his reputation within the game has suffered serious damage because of the dispute about his refusal to take Mancini's instructions when he was required as a substitute in the Champions League tie against Bayern Munich four days later.
For that Tevez was fined four weeks' wages, only for the Professional Footballers' Association to intervene and refuse to relax its guidelines stipulating that a two-week fine is the maximum permissible unless it has approved it.
Regardless of the way he has behaved, the interest from Juventus, Milan and PSG demonstrates that the man who lifted the FA Cup for City last season is still a highly attractive player on the basis of his goals record before his relationship with Mancini broke down irreparably.