Moussa Dembele is finding Celtic fans wherever he goes in the world, something made clear again after his goalscoring debut for Al-Ettifaq in the Saudi Pro League.
Dembele is one of the talented footballers to have made a big-money move to the Middle East this summer and is now Steven Gerrard’s go-to attacker. He made his debut against Sadio Mane’s Al-Nassr on Monday night and scored the winning goal in a 2-1 win.
There were Celtic fans in the stands too, with one Ettifaq outlet interviewing a Scot who was attending her first football match in Saudi Arabia – cheering them on because Dembele is in the team.
Responding on Twitter, the striker said tonight: “No matter the country on earth, there will always be
Celtic fans 😊! Massive community that I will always be grateful and proud to be part of 🟢⚪️ Thanks for the support and to being part of the Ettifaq family.”
Playing alongside another former Celt in Jack Hendry and former Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson, Dembele has a big chance to hit a hot streak of form in the top-flight while earning eye-watering sums of money. Big stars across Europe are finding the opportunity tough to turn down at the moment.
Brendan Rodgers has also recently revealed he turned down similar offers before joining up with Celtic, giving insight into the growing Saudi trend last week.
The Celtic boss believes the combination of cash and an ambitious vision to expand the league into one of the world’s biggest will see many more make the move in the future. He’s also not ruled out Saudi teams coming in for Celtic stars again in the future, having already paid big money for Jota.
Clearly, it’s not a trend that is universally popular, but it’s also not something unique to football. There’s massive Saudi investment into industries across the board at the moment, including many other sports.
For Dembele, Jota and others, it’s a lucrative new chapter in their careers. And it’s clear they will remain popular with the Celtic support regardless of their choices.
In other news, Celtic find themselves in strong negotiating position to land attacker once worth £16.6m.
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