{"id":58547,"date":"2025-08-04T21:02:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T21:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/58547\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T21:02:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T21:02:03","slug":"thomas-partey-close-to-joining-villarreal-in-week-of-court-appearance-villarreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/58547\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Partey close to joining Villarreal in week of court appearance | Villarreal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">The former Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey is poised to join <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/villarreal\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Villarreal<\/a> on a free transfer this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Partey is due to appear at Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/jul\/04\/thomas-partey-former-arsenal-footballer-charged-with-rape-and-sexual-assault\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">being charged<\/a> with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault last month, a few days after he left Arsenal having failed to agree a new deal. He has denied all the charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Partey is understood to have completed his medical at Villarreal having settled on personal terms for a move back to Spain, where he has played for Atl\u00e9tico Madrid, Mallorca and Almer\u00eda. He is believed to have agreed a one-year contract with an option to extend by 12 months, and the opportunity to play in the Champions League next season is thought to have been a motivating factor in the 32-year-old\u2019s decision. Partey also had offers from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>Quick GuideHow do I sign up for sport breaking news alerts?ShowDownload the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhone or the Google Play store on Android by searching for &#8216;The Guardian&#8217;.If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you\u2019re on the most recent version.In the Guardian app, tap the Menu button at the bottom right, then go to Settings (the gear icon), then Notifications.Turn on sport notifications.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Arsenal are due to host Villarreal in a friendly on Wednesday. Some supporters of the Spanish club have voiced opposition to his expected move, with a hashtag #NoAThomasPartey (No to Thomas Partey) trending on X and others being encouraged to write to Villarreal to express disappointment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Partey had been the subject of an investigation that began in February 2022, with the allegations relating to three women who reported incidents between 2021 and 2022. Partey\u2019s lawyer has said her client \u201cwelcomes the opportunity to finally clear his name\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Partey continued to play for Arsenal after first being arrested on suspicion of rape in July 2022 and held talks about extending his contract after Mikel Arteta said he was keen for him to stay. Arsenal\u2019s manager said last month he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/jul\/21\/mikel-arteta-100-sure-arsenal-followed-right-processes-over-thomas-partey\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was \u201c100%\u201d sure<\/a> Arsenal followed the correct protocols over Partey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey is poised to join Villarreal on a free transfer this week. Partey&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-58547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}