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Hot out of Sweden: Aftonbladet is reporting Zlatan Ibrahimovic visited the US Embassy in Paris!
What is significant about that, you say? Well, the Swedish newspaper does its homework. Here's the play-by-play on Zlatan's trip to the Embassy:
- It happened on March 19 (It takes time to get this kind of information)
- He dressed casually and posed for photographs with staff (Zlatan is modest and generous)
- He was accompanied by a man who did not speak great French (Authentic detail you only get from good reporting)
- His visit lasted less than an hour. Usually, such visits take up to 90 minutes. (Zlatan may be modest, but he is still better than you at most things)
- He applied for a VISA TO ENTER THE US (!)
- The sort of visa that allows for a visitor to stay "indefinitely, not just as a tourist" (!! - Also...? You can just rock up to the Embassy in Paris and get an indefinite-stay visa to the US?)
OaM's conclusion: Zlatan is planning to visit America. And he will stay forever!
Or...as the Swedish report concludes, he is most likely making arrangements that will allow him to pursue commercial interests in the US in breaks from his obligations to Paris Saint-Germain, the football club to whom he is contracted until June 2016.
Because although Zlatan has mentioned a move to America and MLS in the past, he is under contract with PSG for at least another year. And most MLS clibs don't have the wherewithal to pay the kind of money required to seize a super-rich club's super-rich star player when he's still got a contract and would therefore require a transfer fee.
Of course, Zlatan is Zlatan. Aftonbladet's investigation found several sources to say (not on the record) that Ibrahimovic isn't going anywhere. But also one who suggested (per Google Translate):
The data on Zlatan's visit to the US embassy is very interesting. It moves around Ibra. I strongly question whether he remains in Paris and PSG in the fall.
Hope springs eternal. Zlatan apparently wants a visa. And it allegedly would give him the right to hang out in the US for as long as he wants.
This could be a really good time to get interested in star power again, RBNY.