Allan Saint-Maximin’s move from Newcastle United to Saudi club Al Ahli has moved closer to completion according to transfer journalist Fabrizio Romano.
Fabrizio Romano has tonight tweeted his “Here we go” catchphrase for the transfer involving Newcastle as he claims Allan Saint-Maximin is close to signing a three year deal at Al Ahli.
Deals don’t usually get the “here we go” treatment until Romano is 100% sure the deal will be completed, and while this one has looked inevitable for a while, it now looks as though there are just a couple more steps until it becomes official.
Several PL clubs kicked up a fuss about Saint-Maximin’s Saudi move
Romano tweeted: “Allan Saint-Maximin to Al Ahli, here we go! Verbal agreement reached. First part of medical tests passed too.
All parties waiting to check documents before getting deal done/sealed. Contract until 2026 to be signed soon”
There was a school of thought that the transfer may be held up due to an absolute non-story that Al Ahli were paying over the odds for Saint-Maximin.
This weekend saw a lot of controversy surrounding Saint-Maximin’s £30million move to Al Ahli as the Saudi club is owned by the Saudi PIF, Newcastle’s 80% shareholders. It’s believed that several clubs wrote a letter to the Premier League asking them to provide extra scrutiny to the deal believing that Newcastle were somehow cheating the system.
If Allan Saint-Maximin was sold to any other non-PIF owned team in the world for £30million nobody would have batted an eye, but because it’s Newcastle and a PIF-owned club, the knives were out. That is, of course, in spite of the fact that many of the Premier League’s top clubs have sold players to the Saudi Pro League, and many of them have managed to receive over-the-odds payments, they still feel somehow wronged when Newcastle dare to sell a player.
Harvey Barnes’ transfer was dependent on the Saint-Maximin deal
Watford and Udinese are owned by the same person and have done over 60 deals between the clubs, never once has anyone written a letter asking the governing bodies to intervene. There were slight rumblings of working the system, but it never got as petty as this. It’s just a clear attempt by the “big six” to try and derail the Newcastle project because they are terrified.
Thankfully, it seems the Premier League paid no mind to the complaints and the transfer will go through. With just the final few formalities to complete, it won’t be long before it is confirmed.
Given that Harvey Barnes was announced today, it seemed inevitable that the Saint-Maximin deal was close as the Barnes deal reportedly relied on the money from that deal to work.
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