Stockholm (AFP)
AC Milan star Zlatan Ibrahimovic has returned to Sweden due to the coronavirus pandemic and was spotted training with the team of Hammarby, Swedish 1st division club of which he is one, on Thursday. shareholders, fueling speculation around its future.
The Swedish star's contract, recruited in December by the Italian team, expires at the end of the season. According to the Swedish media, citing La Gazzetta dello Sport, the player does not intend to extend it.
So what future for the 38-year-old? "I have the impression that he will play in Hammarby", in the Swedish capital, judge Alexander Axén, former Swedish trainer who became a television commentator.
A speculation yet swept away by the interested party: if Zlatan Ibrahimovic continues his football career, it will be off the field, he assures himself. "I want to learn something new about football from a different angle. I will contribute next to (on the pitch), not on the pitch," he said in a river interview published on April 1 in the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.
"Ibra" acquired last November around 25% of the Hammarby club shares.
Asked by the daily Dagens Nyheter, club president Richard Von Yxkull said he did not close the door on this potential arrival, "but this decision is not ours".
"It's a question of how Zlatan sees his future and what he wants to do," he said.
The fact that the AC Milan striker is active in training can also give a clue to the possibility of an imminent resumption of the Italian Championship, suspended since early March due to the spread of the coronavirus. In the midst of a health crisis, Italian football clubs have been tearing apart for weeks as to the opportunity to resume competition.
In Sweden, measures to fight the virus are more flexible than elsewhere in Europe. Among the strictest measures so far is the ban on gatherings of more than 50 people.
© 2020 AFP