Options dwindling for De Gea - Saudi Arabia and Mexico beckon
The Spanish goalkeeper continues the search for a new club. Saudi Arabia is still an option, but the market closes tonight. There are other exotic destinations on the horizon.
Time is running out for David de Gea, who could potentially spend the next four months without playing if he is unable to find a new club. The Spanish keeper has been a free agent since his contract at Manchester United expired at the end of June. The 32-year-old spent 12 seasons defending the Old Trafford goal but has struggled to find a new destination in Europe, where all the major transfer windows have closed until next year. It’s a difficult situation for De Gea, who picked up the Golden Glove award as the Premier League’s best goalkeeper in 2022/23 with 17 clean sheets during his last season at United - an award that has not, so far, given him the opportunity to find a big club.
Saudi market closes tonight
With the deadline for squad lists to be submitted to UEFA for this season’s European competitions now passed, De Gea’s main option is the Saudi Arabian Pro League. The Saudis transformed the market this summer with a number of high-profile signings and their transfer window closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. local time (22:59 hours in Spain). Two top goalkeepers joined Saudi clubs in recent weeks - Bono swapped Sevilla for Al-Hilal and Édouard Mendy left Chelsea to join Al-Ahli on a three-year contract back in June. The goalkeeper’s position is one that many Pro League clubs are keen to reinforce.
However, De Gea faces another obstacle. All Saudi clubs can have a maximum of nine foreign players on their books but most of the bid clubs have already reached that limit. Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal for instance have already filled their quota.
Meanwhile in Europe, the transfer window in all the major leagues closed last week. The only large open market that remains open is Turkey , which will close on closes on Friday 15th. However, the main Turkish Süper Lig teams are involved European competitions (Galatasaray in the Champions League; Besitkas and Fenerbahçe in the Europa Conference League) and closed their squads on Monday in line with UEFA’s requirements. Again, registration is the big obstacle. For that reason, it’s unlikely that we will see De Gea joining one of the big Turkish clubs in the next few days as he would be unable to play in Europe until January at the earliest.
Liga MX or Qatar
In De Gea’s favour is that he remains a free agent and there is nothing stopping him biding his time and spending the next four months training on his own until the next window opens in January. Other options, apart from Saudi Arabia, include Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or even Mexico, whose transfer markets are open until next week. De Gea’s market value currently stands at €13 million and that could be a little excessive for most Liga MX clubs.