“I’m going to Osasuna,” tweeted 15-year-old striker Munir El Haddadi in 2011.
The Madrid-born player with Moroccan parents had been rejected by both Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid and his agent was looking at other options. The pair were about to leave for Pamplona when a Barcelona representative in Madrid saw the tweet. He called Munir’s agent.
“Have you signed for Osasuna?” asked Jose Luis Colomo.
“Not yet,” replied Antonio Gabaldon.
Colomo, who had watched the young striker, told the agent that he would call Barcelona. He rang Antonio Puig, the head of Barca’s youth football department. Barca were interested, so Munir held back on signing with Osasuna.
The Catalans dispatched Garcia Pimienta, coach of a junior Barca team, to Spain’s capital to watch Munir and verify accounts from their man in Madrid that he couldn’t stop scoring for the junior teams of Rayo Majahonda, a third-division club.
He scored 32 goals in 29 matches in the 2010/11 season. Majahonda are an informal feeder club for Atletico Madrid, and the current Spanish champions, who boast an excellent youth system, arranged for El Haddadi to go there, but they didn’t follow up their interest.
Hence Osasuna’s approach, shrewdly subverted by Barca. The striker, who was noted for being strong, quick and a fine finisher for his age, was indeed considered hugely talented and he also liked the idea of Barca, not just over Osasuna, but Real Madrid, who were now showing interest again. Manchester City, Getafe and Rayo Vallecano also approached his agent.
The clincher was that Barca provided full-time accommodation for their young players in the famed Masia academy, which Madrid didn’t offer for their local youngsters. Munir moved 600 kilometres to Barcelona, where he has been since.
Whether Colomo reading Munir’s tweet will prove as prophetic as former player and coach Carles Rexach signing Lionel Messi on a napkin when he was 14 remains to be seen, but Munir has progressed rapidly.
In a social-media age of six-second highlights of goals, he came to wider attention at 16 by chipping Zaragoza’s goalkeeper from 30 metres in a Juvenil A game.
Munir started last season with the club’s Under 18s, and eventually became the top scorer in the Uefa Under 19 League, with 11 in 10 matches, including two in the final against Benfica.
The second of those goals, from three metres inside his own half again chipping the goalkeeper, also went viral.
In March, he made his debut for Barca’s B team in the Spanish second division, where he scored four times in 11 games toward the end of the season as they finished third in the league. League rules prevented them from competing in the promotion play-offs.
With Real Madrid’s Castilla reserve team relegated, no other Spanish club has a second team in the second division aside from Barca and that team was expected to provide the platform for Munir this term, though he was attracting numerous suitors.
Real Madrid tried to sign him and Arsenal hoped to repeat what they had done with Cesc Fabregas a decade previous by enticing the player, but Munir had renewed his contract, signing a deal in January 2014 that would keep him at the club until 2017.
He was still on a youth-team salary, but much has happened since January. His contract was improved in March when he made his Barca B debut and a buyout clause of €12 million (Dh57.8m) added. That would increase to €35m in the then-unlikely event of him joining the first team.
In the Marca guide to football published this month, a 418-page book which is highly influential within Spanish football, Munir is listed as a minor B team player.
That was sent to print just six weeks ago. Now he finds himself with the first team.
It is a surprise for new Barca manager Luis Enrique.
“A lot of players don’t realise that [Andres] Iniesta and Xavi had lots of games on the bench,” said Enrique of young players. “Only Messi walked into the first team. Young players have to understand, adapt and learn. They have to learn little by little, otherwise there is too much pressure on them.”
Yet by Barca's first home game of the season, played last weekend, Enrique started Munir.
With Luis Suarez banned and Neymar not fit, the man with “Munir” on his shirt made his goalscoring, first-team debut at home to Elche after a sleepless night worrying about whether he would play.
The chance of that happening increased significantly after a pre-season in which he led the team in scoring and moved ahead of established striker Gerard Deulofeu in the queue for the first team.
Deulofeu has since gone on loan to Sevilla, but Munir, who turns 19 tomorrow, has become the most talked-about young player.
Enrique said he had “no fear” about starting him in front of 68,105 fans against Elche. Munir began in attack with Messi and another Barca league debutant, left-winger Rafinha, 21, who was Enrique’s best player while on loan at Celta Vigo last season.
The sleep-deprived youngster did not freeze, but struck the top of the crossbar in the 23rd minute after being set up by captain Andres Iniesta. In the 46th minute, new signing Ivan Rakitic chipped the ball over the defence and Munir struck the ball goalward with the outside of his left foot. A dream goalscoring debut was complete.
Enrique was delighted with the performance and also praised Munir, stating: “Let’s not exaggerate, he has a lot to do, but we have great expectations of him. Let’s see if they are realised.”
Munir received an ovation when he was replaced by Pedro in the 67th minute. His week got better when he was named in Spain’s Under 21 team to face Hungary and Austria in September.
The Moroccan Federation also want him to represent the country and he previously has said that his priority was to play for “my country of origin”.
Barcelona and Munir’s agent have agreed to meet in one month to discuss a new contract, which will surely dwarf his old one.
With Suarez and Neymar to return to play along Messi, the youngster is neither ready nor likely to be starting every week. He is also unlikely to tweet that he’s about to leave Barcelona for another club anytime soon.
sports@thenational.ae
Villarreal v Barca, 9pm, BeIn Sports
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
RACE SCHEDULE
All times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Friday, September 29
First practice: 7am - 8.30am
Second practice: 11am - 12.30pm
Saturday, September 30
Qualifying: 1pm - 2pm
Sunday, October 1
Race: 11am - 1pm
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Continental champions
Best Asian Player: Massaki Todokoro (Japan)
Best European Player: Adam Wardzinski (Poland)
Best North & Central American Player: DJ Jackson (United States)
Best African Player: Walter Dos Santos (Angola)
Best Oceanian Player: Lee Ting (Australia)
Best South American Player: Gabriel De Sousa (Brazil)
Best Asian Federation: Saudi Jiu-Jitsu Federation
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants
Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Results
4pm: Al Bastakiya – Listed (TB) $150,000 (Dirt) 1,900m; Winner: Panadol, Mickael Barzalona (jockey), Salem bin Ghadayer (trainer)
4.35pm: Dubai City Of Gold – Group 2 (TB) $228,000 (Turf) 2,410m; Winner: Walton Street, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
5.10pm: Mahab Al Shimaal – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: Canvassed, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
5.45pm: Burj Nahaar – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Midnight Sands, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
6.20pm: Jebel Hatta – Group 1 (TB) $260,000 (T) 1,800m; Winner: Lord Glitters, Daniel Tudhope, David O’Meara
6.55pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 – Group 1 (TB) $390,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: Salute The Soldier, Adrie de Vries, Fawzi Nass
7.30pm: Nad Al Sheba – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (T) 1,200m; Winner: Final Song, Frankie Dettori, Saeed bin Suroor
The Gentlemen
Director: Guy Ritchie
Stars: Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant
Three out of five stars
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
Scores
Scotland 54-17 Fiji
England 15-16 New Zealand
