Barcelona Captures David Villa

BBC: Striker David Villa moves to Barcelona from Valencia.

David Villa will be unveiled as a Barcelona player on Friday after completing a £34.2m move from Valencia.

The Spain international has signed a four-year deal and is the first summer capture for the Catalan club, with Cesc Fabregas also said to be a target.

Villa, 28, is due in Barcelona on Thursday and is booked for a medical.

The top scorer at Euro 2008 despite missing the final through injury, he had reportedly attracted interest from Manchester United and Chelsea.

The man from Asturias, in the north of Spain, is a regular in his country's first team and will be highly fancied to make a big impact at the World Cup.

His arrival at Barcelona is likely to lead to increased speculation over the futures of strikers Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

After a board meeting at Valencia on Wednesday morning, Manuel Llorente, the president of the club known as "Los Che", said they had accepted Barca's offer.

"We have sold David Villa to Barcelona for 40 million euros," he told a news conference at the Mestalla.

"As everyone knows we could have done this deal last year but we thought at that moment it was best to keep our squad together to try and get into the Champions League.

"We have achieved that aim and finished third in the league, and he has contributed a lot towards this. We think it is a good sale and necessary for the economic situation of the club."

Barcelona's outgoing president Joan Laporta claimed on Tuesday the club were "satisfied" with the 21-goal contribution of Ibrahimovic in his first season since arriving from Inter Milan.

Henry appears to be on the verge of a move to Major League Soccer, with Laporta revealing there was "a lot of interest" in the 32-year-old French forward from the United States.