Sirino is keen to sign for Al-Ahly
MOSIMANE: KNOWS OFFICIAL TALKS HAVE TAKEN PLACE
Al-Ahly head coach Pitso Mosimane has confirmed that Gaston Sirino wants to swap Tshwane for Cairo but admits it is ultimately up to Masandawana whether they sell their star winger.
“He wants to play for Ahly, that’s a fact,” said Mosimane yesterday in an interview with the South African Football Journalists Association.
“Sirino is 30, maybe it is his last chance, he is fighting for that. He has to do it the right way. If Sundowns want to release Sirino, they can, if they don’t...well.”
Mosimane added that Sundowns president Patrice Motsepe was in Cairo for the Caf Champions League win over Zamalek, and that he knows high-level talks have taken place between the two sides.
He also, however, denied that he had anything to do with Ahly’s move for the Uruguayan winger, who Mosimane brought from Bolivia to play in the Premier Soccer League.
“All you guys know that Al-Ahly were asking about Sirino when I was at Sundowns, it is just a perception that I want Sirino. I am in the hot seat, I am not angry about it. When I was at Sundowns I said to Sirino ‘don’t go, stay here!’ They know him because they played against him.
“Ahly want Sirino, they spoke to Sundowns officially, a lot is happening, the president of Sundowns was here at the Champions League final. I didn’t meet him… he was probably very busy.
“You can’t tell me there have never been talks for Sirino. There have been talks even at that (presidential) level.
“It is unbelievable. One day he (Sirino) said to me that I was the first person he met in South America, who said ‘come to South
Africa and do well here and you will probably move to Europe or whatever. He was 25 or 26 at that time.
“it is a football ecosystem. Al-Ahly players have signed for teams in the EPL. It is an equal system.”