Ibrahima Diaby to Al Ahli
Cercle Brugge cash in for €13.5m

1. 6 Sept
   Transfer confirmed

   Cercle Brugge and Al Ahli both officially confirmed the move, with Cercle posting a farewell message to Diaby after a little over a year at the club.

Cercle Brugge have completed the sale of teenage midfielder Ibrahima Diaby to Saudi Pro League champions Al Ahli in a deal worth up to €13.5m.

Cercle Brugge have sold defensive midfielder Ibrahima Diaby to Saudi Pro League side Al Ahli, in a deal the Belgian club say is worth up to €13.5m. The package is built around a fixed fee of around €10m with a further €3.5m available in add-ons, and covers a four-year contract for the 19-year-old at Al Ahli, running to the summer of 2030. Both clubs confirmed the move themselves: Al Ahli's announcement declared Diaby "an Ahlawi", while Cercle Brugge posted their own farewell message, wishing him "Bonne chance, Ibra!" as he left Jan Breydel after a little over a year in Belgium.

For Al Ahli, this is a long-term bet rather than an immediate fix. The Saudi club are the reigning Asian Champions League holders and have spent heavily this year rebuilding around new head coach Marino Pušić, bringing in established midfield options such as Franck Kessié and Enzo Millot alongside attacking additions like Fran Trincao and Eduard Spertsyan. Diaby, by contrast, arrives as a teenager with barely a season of first-team senior football behind him. The four-year contract suggests Al Ahli see him as a player to develop behind their more experienced midfielders rather than an instant starter, and the size of the fee reflects the Saudi market's continued appetite for promising young talent rather than the player's current output.

Cercle Brugge lose a player who had only just nailed down a regular starting role. Diaby joined the club on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain's academy in the summer of 2025, having made his professional debut on the opening day of last season's Jupiler Pro League against Dender. He spent much of his first year in Belgium as a fringe option before working his way into the side, and this season he had made a handful of appearances — 349 minutes across his matches, without a goal or an assist — before Al Ahli's interest crystallised. Financially, though, the sale is a huge result for Cercle: it is the second-biggest departure in the club's history, behind only Kevin Denkey's €15m move to Cincinnati in January 2025, and fits a pattern of the Belgian club developing young players for profit.

Diaby's output at Cercle so far is modest by design as much as by circumstance. Across his time in Belgium he made close to 30 appearances in all competitions, scoring twice and assisting twice, often introduced from the bench before establishing himself as a starter this season. He is still, by most accounts, a player developing the consistency needed for regular senior football rather than the finished article — which is precisely why the size of the fee raised eyebrows in Belgium, and why Cercle moved quickly to accept it once the Saudi transfer window offered a route to sell after their own domestic window had already shut.

At Al Ahli, Diaby joins a midfield that already has more senior options in Kessié and Millot, so he is unlikely to walk straight into Pušić's starting eleven. The expectation is that he will be eased in as competition and cover in the defensive midfield role, with the club's coaching staff working on the technical qualities that made Paris Saint-Germain sign him as a youngster in the first place. Whether he becomes a regular contributor this season or spends the early part of his contract in a squad role will depend on how quickly he adapts to a much higher standard of week-to-week football than he faced in Belgium.

Either way, the move is now done business: two official club confirmations, a reported fee split between guaranteed and add-on money, and a signed long-term contract all point to a completed transfer rather than one still in negotiation.

• Announced by the clubs100

A sourcing score, not a chance of completion: it grades how solid the reporting behind the move is. The stage and the evidence come from the sources listed below; the arithmetic is fixed in code, the same for every deal.

• Sacha Tavolieri on X: Cercle Brugge and Al Ahli agree €13.5m deal for Diaby
• OFFICIEEL: Cercle Brugge rondt lucratieve transfer van Diaby naar Saoedi's af
• Jackpot au Cercle: 13,5 millions pour un joueur de 19 ans - FootNews
• Officiel: Makaya Ibrahima Diaby rejoint Al-Ahli SC - AFRICASPORT.ORG
• Kassa kassa: Cercle kondigt megatransfer aan - VoetbalNieuws
• Un joueur du Cercle Bruges file en Arabie saoudite contre un beau pactole - Walfoot.be