Cristiano Ronaldo
Workers at a Fiat Chrysler plant in Italy are to strike after its main investor decided to pay €112m (£99.2m) to sign footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo for Juventus.
Both the football club and the carmaker are controlled by the Agnelli family through their holding company.
For the USB union, the decision means Fiat is missing out on investment.
It said the firm needed to guarantee the future of thousands of people, “rather than enriching only one”.
The union added that it was “unacceptable” that while Fiat Chrysler workers were making “huge economic sacrifices”, millions of euros were being spent on the purchase of a player.
The four-year deal to woo Ronaldo from Real Madrid was announced on Tuesday amid concern that Juventus might have overpaid for the 33-year-old forward.
Is £99m Ronaldo good value for Juventus?
However, football finance expert, Rob Wilson, of Sheffield Hallam University, said Juventus should earn more than enough money from Ronaldo to cover the transfer fee and his wages.
He added: “The marketing leverage that Juventus will be able to create will be significant. Added to that, the likelihood that he will strengthen the team, it seems plausible that they will be more successful domestically and qualify routinely for the Champions League. That means more sponsors, more TV money and more prize money.”
Born on the Portuguese island of Madeira, where the airport is named after him, Ronaldo has had a successful career at Real Madrid, scoring 450 goals in 438 games for the club.
As captain of the Portuguese team in the 2018 World Cup, he scored four goals, including a hat-trick against Spain. Portugal made the last 16 of the tournament, in stark contrast to Italy, who failed to qualify for the first time since 1958.