Hull City owned Acun Ilıcalı has told Sabah that, if he could, he would like to sign Fenerbahçe’s Fred and Galatasaray goalkeeper Fernando Muslera for the Championship side.
It’s widely known that the 54-year-old is a Fenerbahçe supporter and during the course of the lengthy interview, he was asked which two Süper Lig players he would like to sign for Hull City.
When responding to that, he said: “If I had the right to buy two footballers at the end of the season, I would close my eyes and buy Fred. Seri-Fred-Ozan trio would be so good that you can sit and watch it with pleasure. I would also buy Muslera. Take Muslera, welcome to the Premier League.”
Last summer, the Brazilian midfielder joined the Yellow Canaries after spending five years at Manchester United.
Ilıcalı took over Hull City in January 2022, when the team was in the lower half of the Championship table. The Tigers finished 15th last season and are currently ninth in the table, six points behind sixth placed Norwich City.
Sabah points out the Turkish businessman has been successful in everything he’s done so far in his career and asked him when he will achieve success at Hull City.
“For the moment, I consider the team successful. It was ranked 21st when we bought it. Of course, we haven’t achieved the success we dreamed of, but this business is like climbing a ladder,” Ilıcalı explained.
“It has been like that in my own career. I want to climb the stairs step by step in our England adventure. I can’t give a deadline because neither fast nor slow will make me happy. I want us to climb slowly.”
At the same time, Ilıcalı has insisted Hull City are dreaming of returning to the Premier League. He has also given an insight on what will be the English club’s transfer policy if they were to make it to the top flight.
He seems to be focusing on buying to sell at a big profit.
“Thank God, we are currently making 1 to 3 and 3 to 5 in transfers. You will buy it for €5m, it will be 30. You will buy it for 10, it will be 50. We need to achieve this. This will be our policy,” he added.
“Just like Real Madrid bought Arda Güler. We can guess how much he’ll be from now on. We need to catch players like that. We got Jaden Philogene to €5m, now he’s [worth] €30m. But we have no intention to give him away for 30. Ozan is not a potential player due to his age (29). We received three offers from Turkey. But there was no offer from England.”
If it all feels a little Football Manager inspired, that’s because it is, with the Hull City boss saying: “Years ago we used to play FM (Football Manager) a lot. When you look at it, I am experiencing the truth of this right now, but the truth is difficult.”
