Turkish club Fanar Bahja asked its fans to help finance the deal of German striker Mesut Ozil and provide the necessary financial resources to pay the wages of the player coming from Arsenal.
Ozil reached an agreement with Arsenal earlier this month, in preparation for his accession to Fanar Bahja.
On Sunday, the two clubs officially announced the agreement to transfer the player.
Thank you, @ Mesutzil88 ❤️
- Arsenal (@Arsenal) January 24, 2021
The British newspaper "Daily Mail" reported that Fanar Bahja is facing a severe financial crisis and is seeking to find a solution in order to guarantee Ozil's annual salary estimated at 4 million euros.
Although Ozil agreed to a significant reduction in his wages compared to what he was paid with Arsenal (about 20 million euros a year), but the president of the Turkish club Ali Koç admitted that his team needed financial support in the deal of the former Real Madrid player.
Koch directed a request for fans to participate in a donation campaign via SMS, with an estimated cost of 2 euros per message, and sent to the number 1907, which is the date of the founding of the team.
The British newspaper stated that this campaign comes at a time when the team faces debts amounting to about half a billion euros, but the great passion of the team's fans may alleviate this financial crisis.
This passion was evident in the fans sweeping the communication sites on the occasion of announcing the arrival of Ozil, and within half an hour of the German midfielder announcing his move to Fanar Bahja, the post was retweeted more than 100,000 times, as confirmed by Flightradar24, which monitors civil aviation traffic. More than a million people tracked the private plane that took Ozil from London to Istanbul.
The club president, Fanar Bahja, hopes that this passion will be translated into money and that the team will generate more income through the sales of Ozil's shirts.