Hilal claim Brazilian from under noses of Al Wahda

Barnaby Read 09:38 02/08/2016
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  • Tiago Alves.

    Al Hilal have secured the loan signature of Brazilian forward Tiago Alves on Tuesday, exactly a week after Arabian Gulf League side Al Wahda reported a deal of their own for the player.

    Wahda released a statement later in the day admitting that they were initially unaware that the player was only on loan at South Korea’s Seongnam and that his parent club was Clube Atletico Panapolense of Brazil.

    The AGL club laid fault at the feet of Seongnam, claiming that they failed to meet a deadline set out by Wahda to complete the deal by August, 1.

    This allowed Hilal to swoop in and snap up Alves.

    Alves was pictured in a Wahda scarf and being greeted by club officials at Dubai Airport last Tuesday.

    The club then released a statement on their website four days later, saying Alves was undertaking medical procedures while final agreements were made between Wahda, the player, parent club Clube Atletico Panapolense and current loanees Seongnam FC of South Korea.

    With the confusion cleared up, it was expected that Alves would head back to Korea before later meeting up with his new Wahda team-mates at their pre-season camp in Barcelona.

    “The WAFC’s Company announces that the new recruited Brazilian Thiago Alves de Lima has passed the medical examination procedures he underwent recently in one of the private hospitals and that the player had left after the completion of the medical exams directly to Korea to finalize personals before moving for good from Seongnam to the Clarets,” read the statement.

    “The company will complete [Saturday] the final agreement, which guarantees him to become a player at the club for the next three years.”

    It went on to claim that the deal would be completed “within days”.

    An agreement could not be reached between all four parties, however, with Hilal tweeting in the early hours of Tuesday morning that they had secured the loan signing of the 23-year-old.

    The Clarets have already lured Emirati duo Tariq Ahmed and Nasser Abdulhadi from Dibba Al Fujairah this summer but they are in the market for a fourth foreign player as former Arsenal midfielder Denilson has joined Cruzeiro on a six-month loan.

    Talismanic striker Sebastian Tagliabue, Chile playmaker Jorge Valdivia and South Korea defender Rim Chang-woo are the three other players making up their foreign quota.

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