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Bellamy completes Cardiff switch

Craig Bellamy only joined Liverpool last season © PA Photos

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Craig Bellamy is back at Cardiff City, joining the Bluebirds from Liverpool on a two-year contract after passing a medical in Wales.

Bellamy, 33, returns to his hometown club from Anfield two years after playing for them on loan from Manchester City in 2010-11.

The Wales international is understood to have accepted a deal worth £35,000 a week - a huge drop from the £90,000 a week he was earning on Merseyside. Cardiff are also offering a £1 million promotion bonus if Bellamy helps them to the Premier League at the end of the new season.

On Wednesday, Anfield manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed that he had agreed to let Bellamy talk to the Bluebirds.

A statement on the club's official website said: "It's with great pleasure that Cardiff City Football Club formally welcomes Craig Bellamy back.

"Craig has made his continued passion to help Cardiff City succeed in its ambitions very clear in recent years. We all look forward to his contribution to the team in the years to come.

The Cardiff chief executive Alan Whiteley said: "I would like to thank our manager [Malky Mackay] for his tenacity and single-mindedness in ensuring the transfer could take place, and of course Brendan Rodgers and Liverpool Football Club.

"I am sure Craig's return will be met with huge excitement and enthusiasm by all Cardiff City fans."

Mackay, who was Bellamy's captain at Norwich City in the late 1990s, added: "We've known each other our whole careers. We were together many years ago at Norwich. He's a proud person from the Cardiff area and he's a top player, a top talent."

Bellamy, who helped Team GB to the quarter-finals of the Olympic men's football tournament, wants to return to South Wales to be with his wife and children, who live in the family home just outside Cardiff.

A statement on the Liverpool website said: "Everyone at the club would like to wish him all the best for the future." He also played twice for the Reds, having originally joined them in 2006.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.