31. 08. 10. - 15:00

Rebel Scharner in shock WBA move

Paul Scharner has signed a two-year contract at West Bromwich Albion (WBA) after playing five years for Premiership rivals Wigan Athletic.

Reports have it that the 30-year-old national team ace agreed to join WBA following manager Roberto Di Matteo’s promise he will be nominated as a midfielder only and not as a centre-back.

Infamously outspoken Scharner fell out with Austria Vienna bosses before leaving the club in 2003 over coaches’ refusal only to let him play in a midfield position.

The former Brann Bergen star is the club’s ninth signing this summer.

Austrian sports press quotes his agent Valentin Hobel as saying: "Paul will earn 20 per cent more at West Brom than at Wigan."

Rumour has it Scharner will rake in more than two million Euros a year at WBA after having been Wigan’s top earner.

Di Matteo praised the Lower Austrian as a "versatile and powerful player".

The Chelsea legend said: "I'm delighted to welcome Paul to the club. He is exactly the type of player we've been looking to bring in because he is a proven Premier League player."

Scharner was not nominated for the Austrian Euro2008 squad after publicly criticising the team’s training methods and structures at the Football Federation (ÖFB).

He was linked to Liverpool and Fulham before completing his move to WBA.

Scharner said earlier this year he would only join a team which qualified for an international competition or has chances to do so this season. Newly-promoted WBA are tipped to fight relegation by most British football columnists and experts.

Meanwhile, 32-time Austrian league title-holders Rapid Vienna announced former Hull City striker Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink agreed to join them for two years.

Coach Peter Pacult said he hoped the 31-year-old Dutchman could replace Croat Nikica Jelavic who left the club after two years for five million Euros to play for Glasgow Rangers.

Danish international Sören Larsen and Slovenian striker Klemen Lavric were also tipped as possible Jelavic replacements before Pacult encouraged Rapid’s executive manager Alfred Hörtnagl to press on with alluring Hesselink.

Rapid are currently in fourth in the Austrian Bundesliga table after six of 36 rounds this season. The Green-Whites, who celebrated their most recent league title in 2008, finished the previous season in third.