Superleague
Manolas’ legendary contract that made him Greece’s highest-paid footballer again
Since Kostas Manolas, Sarza has been dealing with what has changed in his own perspective on a new immigration, his former Roma teammate Miralem Pianic and the increase in his income that puts him back at the top of the highest paid Greek footballers.
The news of Kostas Manolas’ move to Sarza may have come as a surprise, but the truth is that everyone has probably been waiting and working on such a development for a long time.
Reports of interest in the 31-year-old centre-back from teams across the Arabian Peninsula, most notably Al Nasr, a side coached by former Roma Greek goalkeeper Rudi Garcia, were no coincidence.
Sharjah has been looking for a centre-back since late July. It was proposed to the leaders of the United Arab Emirates (as well as virtually every team in the peninsula) without then at least not having any reciprocal cooperation.
And Manolas was reluctant to leave Greece again – perfectly reasonable, he hadn’t “felt at home” after 7.5 years in Italy – and Club Dubai were reluctant to enter into a negotiation process on the figures supporting the proposal for accompanied Manolas.
They couldn’t find a central defender. Over time, Manolas began to think about it.
So when Sarza returned a few days ago, having meanwhile also taken charge of his teammate for two years (2014-16) at Roma, Miralem Pjanic, and it was understood with the approval of the club’s technical director there and a former at the Head of the Olympiakos Academies, Babi Zelenitsa, things took a different turn.
Manolas therefore (with his family) considered the new professional residency, especially since it was specifically in Dubai (he might not have treated it appropriately elsewhere) and then he was financially satisfied and agreed to a (probably) two-year contract, in exchange for total benefits , which will exceed 4.5 million euros, he then also accepted Sarza’s proposal.
With that, Manolas returned to the top of the highest paid Greek footballers ahead of Taxiarchis Foudas, Odysseus Vlachodimos, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Kostas Tsimikas.
Source: sport 24
I am a writer at Sportish, where I mainly cover sports news. I’ve also written for The Guardian and ESPN Brasil, and my work has been featured on NBC Sports, SI.com and more. Before working in journalism, I was an athlete: I played football for Colgate University and competed in the US Open Cross Country Championships.