Vasco have offer for Matheus Gonçalves rejected by Al-Ahli, await agents | OneFootball

The negotiations to bring right winger Matheus Gonçalves back to Brazil have run into a firm obstacle behind the scenes of international football. According to information obtained by the page Central do Arabão, the sporting board of Al-Ahli has officially rejected the formal offers submitted by Vasco and Botafogo for the 21-year-old forward. The Saudi Pro League club stated that it is counting on the Brazilian player for the remainder of the season in the Middle East and, at this time, has no intention of negotiating his departure.

The refusal from the Saudi executives halted the quick progress sought by Vasco’s football department, which had already aligned the contractual terms with the player’s camp. Direct competition with their Rio rival also drove up the race, but it ran into the Arab coaching staff’s stance of keeping the player until registrations in South American football close.

+ Decisive step: Vasco moves forward to complete the signing of Matheus Gonçalves after the green light

Political move with the PIF to force an exit

Even in the face of the Saudi club’s initial veto, the young forward’s representatives have not thrown in the towel in the transfer market. The player’s camp is trying to arrange an emergency meeting directly with representatives of the PIF (Saudi Public Investment Fund) who are involved in the club’s governance, in an attempt to unlock the deal through higher-level channels.

The agents’ strategy is to show that keeping the winger in the squad, without a real prospect of regular playing time in official matches, devalues the financial investment made by the Arab league. The intention is to convince the sovereign fund to authorize a loan move so the player can maintain visibility on the Brazilian stage.

Race against the clock behind the scenes at Vasco

While awaiting the outcome of the talks between the player’s camp and the leadership of the Saudi fund, the board of the Giant of the Hill is taking a cautious tone regarding the feasibility of the deal. Aware of the political complexity of transactions in the Middle Eastern country, the board is keeping its monitoring open, but without committing its budget to bidding wars in the final stretch of the transfer window.

Vasco is racing against the domestic calendar to find out whether the camp’s intervention will have an effect in time to submit the paperwork to the federation’s registration system, splitting its transfer-market focus between the situation in Saudi Arabia and the parallel attempt to sign striker Richarlison.

Matheus Gonçalves is expected to stay in Saudi Arabia – Photo: Disclosure/Al-Ahli

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