Ghanaian footballer create record, signs for Turkish side for 4.35 litres of olive oil

Ghanaian amateur footballer based in Turkey has made the most bizarre of headlines after he sealed a mind-blowing deal with Turkish regional side Yörükalispor in Bursa for (4.53 litres) of olive oil, a ‘record fee’ of 10 pounds.

Mohammed Sumaila who has been playing amateur football in different cities across Turkey for the last five years reportedly agreed to play for the local team after he was contacted by the team.
 
Even though the 25-year-old player had asked for neither money nor olive oil for his services the villagers decide to present him the local produce, in this case, organic olive oil.

Sumaila who has been playing in Turkey since age 20 and has featured for Torbali, Tire, Soma and Gaziemir, said he was invited to play for Yörükalispor, in the month-long tournament by his old teammate and former Turkish midfielder, Tayfun Albayrak from İzmir Gaziemirspor. 

According to him, the decision was reached because the village don’t have money to pay for his service, so they offered to give him olive oil instead.

The player told Turkish media, haberturk that his contract was to run for the duration of the tournament, after which he would move to join another team for the coming season.

I am 25 years old and I have been playing football in amateur teams in Turkey for about 5 years and I have been playing football in Torbali , Tire, Soma and Gaziemir teams.

I transferred to the Kütahya team for next season. I only moved to Yörükalispor to play in their one-month long football tournament in Mudanya.

I came to the village team upon the invitation of Tayfun Albayrak and he said that the villagers would give me the olive oil they had obtained from the olives they produced and so, I accepted the offer he said as quoted by haberturk

Sumaila impressed everyone in his first game for Yörükalispor's in the tournament, so much so that in the second game their opponents, Ülkü75spor blocked him from taking the field for 20 minutes. When he was finally able to join the match, Yörükalispor were already trailing and eventually lost the match 3-2.