Yakubu deal completed

12 April 2012

Everton have sealed a club record £11.25m deal to bring Nigeria striker Ayegbeni Yakubu to Goodison Park after winning their appeal for a work permit.

The Toffees agreed the terms of the transfer with both the player and Middlesbrough a week ago, but his move to Merseyside was delayed when the Home Office refused to grant the former Portsmouth star the necessary paperwork.

Yakubu failed to meet the government department's criteria for international appearances over the last two years, but, after an appeal hearing in Sheffield, the Home Office agreed to relent, allowing the deal to go through, and Yakubu has signed a five-year contract.

The 24-year-old becomes Everton's record signing, outstripping the £8.6m manager David Moyes agreed to pay Crystal Palace last summer for Andrew Johnson, and he could now make his debut at Bolton this weekend.

Yakubu told evertonTV: "I am happy to be here. It is a great feeling to come over and meet a lot of good players and see the spirit that they have.

"I have always said I want to play for a club that plays in Europe, and I think they have the ambition to move forward and they want to finish in the first four and the Champions League and UEFA Cup and for me that is my dream.

"I know there is a long way to go and I want to be part of that - to be successful and to have that dream."

Yakubu revealed that Boro's failure to build on their run to the UEFA Cup final in 2005-06 was a major factor in his deciding to quit the Riverside.

"I chose to go to Middlesbrough because they were in Europe. At the moment they are not doing it," he added.

"I think I made the right decision to come to this place. It is a massive club and it is a great feeling. There are great players and you want to play for a big club."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in