Saudi club Al-Hilal chairman Fahd Bin Nafel refused to confirm the signing of a deal with Argentine star Lionel Messi, while team fans chanted the name of the still Paris SG player to ask for his signature.
“Don’t ask me about Messi,” Bin Nafel replied to reporters on Friday, when asked about the rumors about the signing of the Argentine captain, immediately after Al-Hilalde Ramón Díaz’s victory in the Copa del Rey final played in Jeddah against Al Wehda ( 1-1, 7-6 on penalties).
“I won’t tell them anything. If anything comes out of our press office, they’ll find out,” he insisted.
In another interview carried out on the same pitch, while the fans were chanting the name “Messi, Messi!”, Bin Nafel said: “For me the group is more important than a player.”
“Any star who comes to our club must know that we are a great club. Our goal is to improve (the team). If you focus on one person, you lose the group,” he said.
The current manager of Al Hilal is Ramón Díaz since February 2022, who already managed this Riyadh-based club in a first phase, from October 2016 to February 2018.
After two disappointing seasons at Paris SG, the wealthy Saudi kingdom reportedly offered the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner (35) an “exceptional”, “huge” bridge of gold, a source in Riyadh explained to AFP last Tuesday. Close to negotiations. The figures that came out started from 400 million dollars a season but immediately rose to 600 million, triple what Cristiano Ronaldo earns per season.
Saudi Arabia already managed to capture the spotlight at the end of last year when they managed to lure Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo into their league on a contract estimated at €400 million until 2025, making the Portuguese striker the most paid to the world in 2023, according to Forbes magazine.
Source: AFP
Source: Clarin
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