With New York not playing in the MLS until March 2015, the former Barcelona striker, who assisted Atletico reach the UEFA Champions League final in May though, loosing to Real Madrid, has now agreed to join their affiliate club in Australia in October and will play for them until December.
"Melbourne City FC can today announce that New York City FC's inaugural player and Spanish World Cup winner David Villa will join the club for a period of the Hyundai A-League 2014-15 season," read a statement on the A-League outfit's official website.
Villa, 32, who was unveiled by the Major League Soccer club as its inaugural player on Monday, will play, for Melbourne City FC's Hyundai A-League campaign between October and December 2014 pending the commencement of the MLS season in the United States."
The announcement was made a few minutes after the side formerly known as Melbourne Heart publicly announced their change of name to Melbourne City FC.
The renaming of the Melbourne club, founded in 2009, aligns the Australian outfit with sister teams Manchester City and New York City FC.
That announcement came from Ferran Soriano, chief executive of the clubs' parent company City Football Group, accompanied by a new badge that prominently adds sky blue to its previous red and white colour scheme.
An 80% stake in the Melbourne club was acquired by City's owners, headed by Sheikh Mansour, in January.
Soriano said: "We are very proud to have David Villa as part of the City family and are thrilled to announce he will play for Melbourne City FC in the Hyundai A-League this season.
"The sports fans of Melbourne can look forward to seeing one of the best players in world football representing their city when David brings his rare talents to AAMI Park later this year."
Villa, who is part of Spain's 23-man World Cup squad, is looking forward to the move to Australia and said: "From a football point of view it's the opportunity to play in a new league in a different country, and of course it will be ideal for me to get some competitive football in the period before the MLS season gets under way.
"I'm sure that playing for Melbourne City FC will be a marvellous experience."
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