{"id":33496,"date":"2018-09-18T20:44:20","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T03:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=33496"},"modified":"2018-09-18T20:44:20","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T03:44:20","slug":"from-iran-to-the-uk-via-russia-belgium-france-how-saeid-ezatolahi-came-to-sign-for-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/09\/18\/from-iran-to-the-uk-via-russia-belgium-france-how-saeid-ezatolahi-came-to-sign-for-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"From Iran to the UK via Russia, Belgium & France – how Saeid Ezatolahi came to sign for Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football.London – READING, The Iranian international joined Royals on a season-long loan deal at the end of August.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading boss Paul Clement has revealed the complex story behind the loan signing of Iranian midfielder Saeid Ezatolahi.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old joined Royals on Friday, August 31- the final day of the loan transfer window from Russian outfit FC Rostov.<\/p>\n

The midfielder, who represented his country at the World Cup, only linked up with his new teammates at Hogwood on Monday though after complications surrounding the deal.<\/p>\n

Clement admitted issues regarding the player’s work permit, Visa and international clearance led to his arrival in the UK being delayed by several weeks.<\/p>\n

And the move saw the player spend time in four different countries over the past couple of months to finalise the transfer.<\/p>\n

“We were pleased to get it over the line – it was a bit complicated because you’re dealing with Russia and he’s Iranian so you have Visa and international clearance issues,” said Clement.<\/p>\n

“He had his medical in Belgium with KSV Roeselare (club owned by Reading co-owner Dai Xiu Li) because it was difficult to get him to the UK to do it because of the Visa.<\/p>\n

“It was brought to my attention late in the transfer window – it wasn’t the last day [when we signed him].<\/p>\n

“We had a week gathering as much intelligence as possible, watching him and speaking to those he had worked with.<\/p>\n

“I was able to have a good conversation with Carlos Quieroz (Iran manager) who spoke really highly of him and then I spoke to the player and got a really good feel about him.<\/p>\n

“So we got over the line a really complicated deal. I’m looking forward to working with him and I think he will be a really good addition for us.”<\/p>\n

Ezatolahi joined Rostov from Atletico Madrid in January 2016.<\/p>\n

His loan with Reading is the third time has been sent out by the Russian club following spells with Anzhi Makhachkala and Amkar Perm.<\/p>\n

The Iranian turned in a man-of-the-match display for his country in a 1-0 friendly win over Uzbekistan last Tuesday and he then had to travel to Paris to collect his Visa two days later to gain entry into the UK.<\/p>\n

Clement added: “After the World Cup he had some rest time and he did go back to Rostov for a couple of weeks where he was training.<\/p>\n

“Then there was a period when he wasn’t there and was back in Iran.<\/p>\n

“So he lost a bit of time but fortunately during that period when he was with the national team he was training.<\/p>\n

“He played against Uzbekistan so he might need a bit of time [to get up to speed] but not that much.”<\/p>\n

Ezatolahi could make his debut in one of Royals’ home games this week.<\/p>\n

Norwich City travel to Madejski Stadium on Wednesday evening (8pm kick-off) before Hull City make the trip south on Saturday (3pm KO).<\/p>\n

Clement said: “I hope he has a long future here. The situation at the moment is that he is on loan for the season.<\/p>\n

“When we signed him it was outside the permanent transfer window so it is an initial loan.<\/p>\n

“But hopefully he does really well and it’s a long-term thing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Football.London – READING, The Iranian international joined Royals on a season-long loan deal at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":33497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,92,89,93,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-c16-iranian-legionairs","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":1347,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33496","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=33496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33498,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33496\/revisions\/33498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}