Izuchukwu Okosi
Amid the latest financial windfall in the Saudi Arabian league Pro League, top side Al-Nassr have been hit with a FIFA ban preventing the club from registering new players for their failure to pay add-ons owed to Leicester City as part of the Ahmed Musa’s deal.
The club brought in former Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo to Saudi Arabia in January, and are still linked to other players like Chelsea’s Hakim Ziyech.
However, FIFA has now placed a ban on the Riyadh-based club from registering any more new players, as a result of the club’s failure to pay Leicester City as much as £390K in add-ons for the deal that brought Nigeria’s Ahmed Musa to the club back in 2018.
Musa signed for the Saudi Arabian Pro League side in a deal worth £16.50m shortly after the Nigerian impressed at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
According to the Mirror newspaper, the ruling body (CAS) in 2021, informed the club of £390K(€460K) in performance-related-add-ons that were triggered by Musa between 2018-20, but the club has yet to make the payment.
Al-Nassr have been banned by FIFA from registering new players for failing to pay add-ons owed to Leicester as part of the Ahmed Musa deal. Between 2018-20 Musa triggered £390k (€460k) in performance-related add-ons, which are yet to be paid despite CAS ruling.
Al-Nassr’s failure to comply with the ruling resulted in the registration ban which would stop them from signing some top players from anywhere in the world.
This type of case has been a widespread issue throughout the Saudi Pro League in the past, but the sovereign fund(PIF) in charge of funding Al-Nassr and some other clubs in the league is working to ensure this type of punishment and problems do not happen again.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
