{"id":373702,"date":"2025-12-28T19:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T19:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/373702\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T19:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T19:57:08","slug":"vinicius-junior-backed-for-saudi-arabia-move-amid-real-madrid-contract-standoff-as-sporting-director-makes-bold-prediction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/373702\/","title":{"rendered":"Vinicius Junior backed for Saudi Arabia move amid Real Madrid contract standoff as sporting director makes bold prediction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Barcelona chief, Planes, now sporting director at Al-Ittihad, openly discussed Vinicius\u2019 situation while speaking about the evolution of football in Saudi Arabia. Addressing the possibility of a move, he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marca.com\/futbol\/real-madrid\/2025\/12\/27\/ramon-planes-abre-puerta-vinicius-veo-posibilidad-venga-arabia.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MARCA<\/a>: &#8220;Yes, I see it as a possibility that players like Vinicius could be here in Saudi Arabia. I see an evolution of the championship and it is feasible to have players of the highest level and at their best here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Planes stressed that the Saudi project is no longer focused on late-career signings. &#8220;The trend is already to incorporate players at a very good footballing age. It\u2019s no longer just players in the last stage of their careers,&#8221; he added, underlining the ambition to compete with Europe for elite talent.<\/p>\n<p>The former Barcelona and Real Betis sporting director also widened the scope of his vision, suggesting Saudi clubs could eventually rub shoulders with Europe\u2019s elite on the biggest stage. &#8220;I wouldn\u2019t rule it out at all. Sport is globalising,&#8221; Planes said, when asked about Saudi participation alongside clubs such as Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Barcelona chief, Planes, now sporting director at Al-Ittihad, openly discussed Vinicius\u2019 situation while speaking about the evolution&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[131462,49,48,10618,564,11051,561,82,6745,10617],"class_list":["post-373702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-al-ittihad","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-laliga","tag-real-madrid","tag-saudi-pro-league","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-transfers","tag-vinicius-junior"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}