Football Union President Zingler
“This moral exaggeration of Europe really gets on my nerves”
Status: 27.07.2023 | Reading time: 2 minutes
Cristiano Ronaldo wants to ‘win all the trophies’ with Al-Nassr
Even as a footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo remains hungry for a title. The 38-year-old Portuguese is now aiming to clear all possible competitions with his Saudi club Al-Nassr after a season without trophies.
Clubs from Saudi Arabia are increasingly enticing footballers from Europe with lucrative offers. Dirk Zingler sees no problem in the changes. The President of Union Berlin is launching a sweeping attack against moralizers.
Dirk Zingler, President of Union Berlin, has expressed understanding for football professionals who accept lucrative offers from Saudi Arabia. “That’s perfectly normal. I fully understand that. We always expect moral behavior from others that we have never been in a position to do that ourselves,” said the 58-year-old at the Bundesliga club’s training camp in Bramberg am Wildkogel (Austria). “I will never morally judge anyone for going somewhere to make more money for themselves and their families. There aren’t any worse people there,” said Zingler.
Five-time world footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has been playing in the Saudi league since this year, and the country is also positioning itself to host the 2030 World Cup. Critics also see this as an attempt to distract attention from the precarious human rights situation in the country. Supported by the state fund PIF, clubs from the league, which has so far been of little international importance, also attract many other professionals with extremely lucrative contracts, such as Sadio Mané from FC Bayern Munich.
Zingler said about the situation: “The fact that the Arab world, the Gulf region, will overtake western democracies in the coming decades is as certain as the Amen in the church.” One has to be prepared for changes. “Regions develop differently, so does sport,” he said. “This moral exaggeration of Europe over the rest of the world really gets on my nerves.”
Most recently, the Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal was rebuffed with a record offer from Kylian Mbappè. As the French sports newspaper “L’Equipe” reported, the 24-year-old star striker declined talks with representatives of Al-Hilal in Paris on Wednesday. Previously, Al-Hilal had apparently made an offer of €300m to Paris Saint-Germain and received permission to hold talks directly with the attacker. Mbappé is said to have been offered an annual salary of 700 million euros.
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