The Al-Diriyah Sentinel
Market3 Jul 2028
Bekzod Suvonov puts it in writing
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Al-Diriyah, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
The numbers do not look good at Al-Diriyah
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at Al-Diriyah
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Al-Diriyah is running low.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Khalid Abduljawad is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Hossam Sobhi gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Hossam Sobhi has just signed for Al-Diriyah, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Óscar falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Ibrahim Zaied in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Diriyah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
88% of the income goes out in wages at Al-Diriyah
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Market3 Jul 2028
Al-Diriyah sign Hossam Sobhi, one for the future
Hossam Sobhi is 18, and Al-Diriyah have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
In brief
- Boardroom Intake day at the Al-Diriyah academy
- Market The Clayton Diandy story refuses to die
- Market The clock does Bekzod Suvonov’s negotiating for him