Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Sports is reportedly in talks with Morocco’s football player Hakim Ziyech for a potential transfer in the coming winter transfer window.
The Moroccan playmaker and the Saudi ministry of Sports are still in talks, sports journalist Rudy Galetti said this week, suggesting that a Saudi club is on the verge of announcing an offer to Ziyech.
“A new meeting has been set for next week to have more in-depth discussions on the proposal,” Galetti tweeted on Tuesday, stressing that Ziyech is already ready to leave Chelsea this summer transfer window.
While Ziyech is widely expected to leave Chelsea this summer, many have suggested that the West London club is finding it hard to find a suitable buyer given their asking price for the Moroccan player’s transfer and Ziyech’s own salary expectations.
Although many European clubs are said to be interested in securing the services of Ziyech, Chelsea may not necessarily find a suitor willing to pay the West London club’s £37 million transfer fee for the Moroccan player, the sports news outlet Give Me Sport reported earlier this week.
In Europe, French champions PSG are reported to be among the clubs leading the race to sign Ziyech. The French club was close to signing the Moroccan in the January transfer window, but the deal collapsed on the final day of the transfer window after Chelsea failed to submit the necessary paperwork three times.
Ziyech’s move to Saudi Arabia is also unexpected for many, with a sizable number of football fans seeing the Moroccan creative midfielder as not yet ready or looking to join the long-standing queue of world-class footballers choosing to end their careers in ultra-rich Gulf countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Read Also: Hakim Ziyech: Morocco Showed the World How Parents Should Be Treated
But it remains to be seen whether the former Wizard of Ajax Amsterdam, once coveted by almost all of Europe’s elite clubs, will resist the Saudi temptation to last or survive more years at the top in European football.
This comes on the heels of the bombshell news of Karim Benzema agreeing to join the Saudi club Al Ittihad on a three-year contract reported to be worth $214 million a year.
Prior to that, Cristiano Ronaldo agreed to a similar contract to join Saudi Arabia’s Al Nasser in December 2022.
Meanwhile, the past few days have seen rumors link Messi to a move to Saudi Arabia. However, several reports have suggested that the iconic Agrentinian star, widely considered the best player in the past two decades and more arguably perceived as the best of all times, is expected to join the American club Inter Miami following his PSG exit.
