Rayane Bounida will sign his first professional contract with Ajax on Monday. The Telegraph writes that the attacking midfielder will sign a contract until mid-2025, which will be extended for another two years from the age of eighteen. Bounida already announced on Sunday that he will leave Anderlecht after this season.
Belgian media reported earlier that Anderlecht and Bounida had not agreed on a professional contract because he would have asked for an annual salary of 700,000 euros. The Telegraph writes that according to those involved, this amount is incorrect and that despite the speculation about ‘the enormous sum of money that Bounida will earn at Ajax’, the salary ‘is not a theme at all’. Bounida could have earned multiples in La Liga, Ligue 1 or the Premier League.
Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, among others, were also after Bounida, but Ajax would have persuaded him a year ago. He was then given a tour of De Toekomst and the Johan Cruijff ArenA. The family of the Belgian Moroccan and Mo Nouri, the brother of Abdelhak Nouri, were present during the tour. Ajax tried to convince Bounida that the Amsterdam club is the ideal intermediate step, instead of immediately making the switch to the European top.
Bounida received an extensive presentation from the then director of football affairs Marc Overmars, general director Edwin van der Sar, head of youth scouting Casimir Westerveld and head of training Said Ouaali, in which his way to the first team of Ajax was mapped out. ‘In order to be able to acclimatize optimally’, Bounida will join the Under 17 of Ajax next season. The team from Amsterdam can remove the top talent from Brussels for a training fee, since he had not yet signed a professional contract with Anderlecht.
Anderlecht were allowed to sign him from his fifteenth birthday, but initially the boat was held back to ‘focus on his training and school’. When both parties did enter into talks, it soon became clear that there is a significant difference between supply and demand. Anderlecht’s financial situation is not yet too rosy, but the Belgian top club was still prepared to ‘go exceptionally much further’ than the salary ceiling that exists for youth players. “My heart is purple, wherever I go,” Bounida wrote to his 373,000 followers on Sunday in a video on Instagram with which he said goodbye to Anderlecht.