El Karouani has only just joined Benfica, almost human trafficking | OneFootball

Souffian El Karouani has joined Benfica after a brief spell in Saudi Arabia. The Moroccan left-back was signed by Al Qadsiah during this transfer window, but ended up being loaned to the Eagles without even playing a single minute for the Saudi club. El Karouani’s short stay in Saudi Arabia did not go unnoticed and drew strong criticism from Arnold Bruggink, the former Dutch striker, who commented on the case.

Speaking to ESPN Netherlands, the former PSV forward, where he played between 1997 and 2003, used El Karouani’s situation to criticize a market model that he believes is becoming increasingly common in football. “Aside from the fact that he is financially well off, you end up being treated like merchandise. The short term rules. It’s amateurism, and I don’t like it,” said Bruggink.

The former footballer went even further in his criticism: “It’s almost human trafficking. This applies to everything involving a lot of money, it attracts a lot of crazy people.” Bruggink, who ended his career at Twente in 2011 and later served as the club’s technical director between 2023 and 2025, believes the way the transfer market currently works is close to a real “Wild West.”

The former executive also used the conversation to recall an episode that directly involved Benfica, although without revealing the name of the player in question. According to Bruggink, none of the three players ended up moving to Luz, since the coach wanted another solution for the position.

“Benfica wanted one of our players. The agent showed up asking whether they could start talking. I knew, and it was later confirmed, that Benfica was talking to two other players for the same position, but by that point our player was already going crazy. It was impossible to warn him, the message just wasn’t getting through anymore. We were left with a disappointed player. That’s the kind of thing we have to deal with,” he lamented.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.