Roberto Firmino was one of four senior players discharged by Liverpool at the end of the season.
Reports suggest Roberto Firmino has completed a move to Saudi Pro League side Al Ahli.
The Brazilian left Liverpool at the expiration of his contract, ending his eight-year stint with the club after arriving from TSG Hoffenheim in 2015.
Fabrizio Romano has reported, ‘Bobby Firmino, Al Ahli player’ followed by a tick emoji to indicate the player’s move to Saudi Arabia has been sealed.
Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Riyadh has revealed a three-year deal for Firmino, with the player penning his contract in Dubai.
The 31-year-old is the latest Europe-based player to make a switch to the Gulf state, with goalkeeper Édouard Mendy joining Al Ahli from Chelsea.
Al-Ahli are 75 per cent owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, who also own an 80 per cent stake in Premier League side Newcastle United. Earlier this month, PIF announced it had taken majority ownership of Saudi Arabia’s four leading clubs Al-Ittihad, Al-Ahli, Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal.
Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante and Ruben Neves are among the other players to make the move to middle eastern country, following Cristano Ronaldo’s decision to join Al-Nassr.
Firmino made 362 appearances for the Reds, netting 111 goals and dishing out 79 assists. He was an integral part of the team that won the Champions League and Premier League, as well as the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and UEFA Super Cup.
Speaking of the player’s departure, Jurgen Klopp said:
“He is so integral for everything what happened here in my time. I think he is still the player who started most games even when in his last days here, he didn’t start that often.
“It’s just that I couldn’t imagine for a long, long time how our game would look without him. So, we had to find ways when he was not available and we came through these spells: Sadio [Mane] last year, for example, did that really well.
“But yes, as a person, as a human, as a boy, I will miss him. As a player we all will miss him, but anyway I think it’s the right way to part ways: very respectful, with tears in our eyes and with the knowledge that we will certainly miss each other because it will be the other way around the same.
“But we are a professional football people and we have to separate from time to time, it’s completely normal. So, we will stay friends forever certainly, I will be grateful forever for everything he did for the club, for me, and he will go down as one of the club’s greats. What can you wish more for in a footballer’s life than that?”
