Wolves captain Ruben Neves on Friday grew to become the newest main participant to maneuver to Saudi Arabia, the 26-year-old Portuguese worldwide becoming a member of Al-Hilal. “From the ‘Wolves’ to the most important crew in Asia,” Al-Hilal introduced on social media after the participant signed a three-season deal in Paris. Neves leaves Wolves after six seasons for “a membership report price”, the Premier League facet introduced, reported to be round 55 million euros.
Neves, who arrived at Wolves from Porto, had one yr on his contract left at Molineux.
He joins within the Saudi Professional League Actual Madrid’s Karim Benzema, 35, and Cristiano Ronaldo, 38, in what is predicted to be simply the beginning of a sequence of transfer for stars based mostly in Europe.
Due to its oil riches, Saudi Arabia, the conservative Gulf monarchy steadily focused over its human rights report, has swiftly achieved a outstanding position in world sports activities, doling out billion of {dollars} within the course of.
France’s World Cup-winning midfielder N’Golo Kante, 32, has joined Benzema at Al-Ittihad.
The dominion’s league had already signed up five-time Ballon d’Or winner Ronaldo, who joined Al-Nassr in January.
However in distinction to current strikes for gamers within the twilight of their careers, Neves nonetheless has his prime years forward of him.
Barcelona had held a long-term curiosity within the former Porto midfielder.
The massive deal eases Wolves’ monetary pressures.
They’ve been below stress to promote to keep away from breaching Premier League spending guidelines after forking out £150 million on transfers over the previous 12 months.
Neves has made 253 appearances for Wolves, scoring 30 objectives, since arriving in 2017.
“Ruben is the embodiment of all the pieces you search for when attempting to carry gamers right into a soccer membership; a frontrunner, a humble man and a particularly proficient footballer who took Wolves to a special degree,” stated the English facet’s sporting director Matt Hobbs.
He helped them win promotion from the Championship a yr later after which to 2 consecutive seventh-placed finishes within the Premier League.
Wolves additionally reached the Europa League quarter-finals in 2020, however have struggled to duplicate that success and completed thirteenth final season.
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