{"id":24558,"date":"2016-03-03T14:41:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T22:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=24558"},"modified":"2016-03-03T14:41:26","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T22:41:26","slug":"could-everton-sign-the-iranian-lionel-messi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2016\/03\/03\/could-everton-sign-the-iranian-lionel-messi\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Everton sign the \u2018Iranian Lionel Messi\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newsweek – NEW YORK, Iran has not traditionally been a country towards which the English Premier League gravitates when it wants to sign a player.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That could be about to change, however, with a new Iranian investor in English football.<\/p>\n

Farhad Moshiri, the Monaco-based accountant, acquired 49.9 percent of Everton last weekend, and has promised a major increase in transfer spending.<\/p>\n

And the Tehran Times reports that spending could include a player dubbed the \u201cIranian Messi\u201d\u2014Sardar Azmoun, who plays for Russian Premier League side F.C. Rostov.<\/p>\n

It will doubtless raise eyebrows were Moshiri to make a compatriot one of his first purchases as majority shareholder. But Azmoun, 21, has qualities to suggest he would not simply be a transfer to raise Everton\u2019s profile in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Linked with Arsenal and Stoke City in 2015, he is a natural finisher, belying the fact he has scored four times in 15 games so far for Rostov this season.<\/p>\n

The moniker \u201cNew Messi\u201d is somewhat misleading in this context. Azmoun is tall, for a start, and though he is a goalscorer he doesn\u2019t possess anywhere near Messi\u2019s close control.<\/p>\n

Arsenal supporters were infamously duped in 2015 into thinking Azmoun had signed for the club, when a wag edited his Wikipedia page to suggest he had moved to Emirates Stadium. That, of course, was a hoax. It would not, however, be altogether surprising should Moshiri make a move to widen the appeal of Iranian football in England, and vice-versa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newsweek – NEW YORK, Iran has not traditionally been a country towards which the English…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":24559,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,89,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c16-iranian-legionairs","category-c22-players-spotlight"],"views":2590,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}