NOS Football•
Aymeric Laporte can still return to Athletic Club. The transfer of the 31-year-old central defender of Al-Nassr seemed to have been covering the final day of the Spanish transfer market, but is now approved.
Just before the Spanish Deadline at 11.59 pm on Monday 1 September, Laporte’s transfer was completed. However, it went wrong when registering the transfer in the transfer system of the World Football Association FIFA.
Athletic yielded all documents on time, but due to “external factors”, according to the Basque club, the submission was not complete. Spanish media reported that the required information from Al-Nassr was missing or was not on time.
At Athletic’s request, the Spanish Football Association RFEF already asked FIFA on Tuesday 2 September to make an exception and to grant the required transfer certificate to Athletic.
In the first instance, FIFA refused and the transfer was rejected. Now the disputes committee of the World Football Association has still approved the transition.
Child of the club
In the hope of green light, Spanish International Laporte trained with Athletic last week. He is reunited in Bilbao with coach Ernesto Valverde, whom he still knows well from his first period at the club.
Laporte is a child from the Basque club. At the age of 15 he joined the youth education and made his debut in the first team three years later. After six seasons in the first, he moved to Manchester City for 65 million euros in 2018.
In 2023, the Bask born in France made the switch to the Saudi Al-Nassr, the club of Cristiano Ronaldo. His contract in Saudi Arabia went on for another year. He signed at Athletic until mid -2028.
According to Spanish media, Athletic can now also register for the Champions League, although the deadline of the European Football Association UEFA has actually already expired. Arsenal is the first opponent on September 16.
