Former Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand has revealed he turned down the chance to join Barcelona in 2008.
At the time, Ferdinand was at the peak of his powers for a dominant United side which that season had won the Premier League and Champions League.
En route to their European Cup triumph, United eliminated Barcelona in the semi-finals in what proved to be Frank Rijkard's final season in charge before Pep Guardiola took over and turned a fine Barca side into an all-conquering one.
It was the Dutch manager who was determined to sign Ferdinand before he was sacked, so if the former West Ham and Leeds centre-back had moved to Camp Nou, he would have been an early arrival of the Guardiola era that delivered nine major trophies in four years.
"It came close, there were discussions with my agent. Barcelona had touched base. I’d spoken to Rijkaard not about going there but he kind of made his feelings known," Ferdinand told BT Sport.
"It was after the game in Barcelona we drew 0-0 in the tunnel after the game when I spoke to Rijkaard.
"I always said I wanted to play abroad but the only thing that would stop me was if I was winning and successful on home shores. I was lucky I found a great club at Manchester United it would’ve been almost impossible for me to leave."
While a move to Guardiola's Barcelona would have seen Ferdinand become part of one of the most successful clubs of recent years, he insists he has no regrets, particularly as Barca were still a team in transition.
"There was calls for me to go to various clubs," Ferdinand said. "When that was on the table those clubs were in transition and it didn’t make sense to go somewhere it might take two or three years to win things.
"We beat them and went on to become European Champions so why would I leave to go to another team?
"At that point Xavi, [Andres] Iniesta, [Lionel] Messi was just 20, they were just starting to come through. They weren’t the players they were three or four years later. It was a very different landscape at that time but what a club.”
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Zidane's managerial achievements
La Liga: 2016/17
Spanish Super Cup: 2017
Uefa Champions League: 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18
Uefa Super Cup: 2016, 2017
Fifa Club World Cup: 2016, 2017
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