Liverpool Sign Third Muslim Footballer

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

File: Samed Yesil

The prestigious Liverpool Football Club of the English Premier League agreed to a fee of around £1m to sign striker Samed Yesil from Bayern Leverkusen of the German Bundesliga. The 18-year-old Turkish-German, who has represented his country at under-16, 17 and 18 levels, is a promising young forward who scored six goals for Germany at the Under-17 World Cup last year. After he won the silver shoe award, with six goals, at last year’s under-17 World Cup, the 18-year old was given the nickname Gerd by his admiring Germany teammates. It was a reference to Germany’s prolific goal-scorer from the 60s and 70s, Gerd Muller, and it was picked up by the rest of Bayer Leverkusen’s squad when he returned to Bundesliga duties.

Yesil was not involved for Leverkusen, now managed by the former Liverpool defender Sami Hyypia, when they played Liverpool in a pre-season friendly at Anfield earlier this month but has an impressive goal-scoring record at youth level.

He will become He will become Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers’s fourth summer signing after Fabio Borini, Joe Allen and Moroccan-Dutch footballer Oussama Assaidi. Another Turkish Muslim, Nuri Sahin, was acquired on a one year loan from Real Madrid of the Spanish La Liga. In addition to sharing the same heritage, Yesil and Sahin also share the same agent.

Yesil is eager to make his mark at Anfield but could yet return to Leverkusen, according to sources at the Bay Arena. Sources claim that Leverkusen only agreed to the sale on the condition that Yesil’s contract contain a clause enabling the Bundesliga club to buy him back for the same 1.3 million euros Liverpool paid for him.

Leverkusen will now monitor how ‘Gerd’ develops at Anfield, sporting director Rudi Voller saying: ‘He is a really big talent, but he is still young and is not yet ready to dislodge Stefan Kiessling from our starting line-up.’

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