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Former Manchester United star Jesse Lingard was on his way South Korea on Sunday night after agreeing a shock deal to join FC Seoul.
The 31-year-old posted a picture on Instagram at the airport with his luggage featuring his JLingz fashion label as he prepared to check in for a Korean Air flight.
Lingard has been without a club since leaving Nottingham Forest at the end of last season, and training stints with West Ham and Saudi Arabian club Al-Ettifaq were dead ends.
He is not bound by Thursday’s January transfer deadline and the deal is expected to be completed in the coming days.
Lingard is expected to arrive in South Korea on Monday for a medical and join the team’s training camp in Kagoshima, Japan, with a ‘substantial’ pay packet on offer, according to the BBC .
‘I heard about it two to three weeks ago and I thought it was unrealistic,’ Seoul’s manager, Kim Gi-dong, said.
‘I asked our director of football about it and he replied to me: yes, it’s true, we are in contact with the player, but the deal is not confirmed yet.
‘If he comes, of course, it would be great for K-League as more foreign fans would be interested in our league.
‘And if he comes as he was not playing for a while, we need to give him time to adapt rather than expect an instant impact.’
Eyebrows were raised last month when reports suggested that Lingard had optimistically offered himself to Barcelona.
Were he to join Seoul, he would join a short list of Englishmen to have played in the K-League including Jamie Cureton and Jordan Mutch among others.
The club’s last four finishes have been seventh, ninth, seventh, and ninth in a 12-team South Korean league.
He made 20 appearances during his brief spell with Forest, scoring two goals.
Prior to his stint at the City Ground, Lingard enjoyed a superb loan spell at West Ham in 2021 and scored an impressive nine goals in his 16 appearances.
Lingard won the Europa League, FA Cup and the Carabao Cup with Manchester United and played 232 games for the first team after progressing from the academy.
He has also been handed 32 England caps, the latest of which came in 2021.
Recently, United legend Paul Scholes jokingly hit out at Lingard in his Instagram comments after the winger posted several pictures of himself working out in the gym.
Scholes wrote: ‘Are you just gonna f*** about in the gym or are you gonna actually play football?’ The iconic former midfielder later reacted to a further post of Lingard training on a pitch, commenting: ‘There we go Jess… a ball.’
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
