Sheffield United: Defender set to complete move to Germany
Filip Uremovic, the former Sheffield United defender, appears set to join Hertha Berlin.As The Star revealed last week, Uremovic’s parent club Rubin Kazan made plans to sell the 25-year-old after being relegated from the Russian Premier League.
Although he was released by United following their defeat by Nottingham Forest in the Championship play-off semi-finals, manager Paul Heckingbottom and his coaching staff were maintaining a watching brief on the Croatia international following his return to Tatarstan - despite acknowledging the finances involved meant it would be difficult to broker a permanent deal should FIFA permit foreigners attached to RPL teams to continue suspending their contracts following the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
But after retaining their Bundesliga status after beating Hamburg in a promotion/ relegation shoot-out, the Germans are now poised to complete Uremovic’s signature.
Rustem Saimanov, Rubin’s general director, has been outspoken in his criticism of Uremovic and others who chose to leave the Ak Bars Arena when the governing body outlined its response to the crisis in eastern Europe; directly blaming their exits on his employers’ demotion to the second tier.
“It looks like we just got robbed,” he said. “We invested money in these transfers, had obligations, we took out loans to make these purchases.”
“They planned to sell the players and pay off these loans. But we don’t have those players now. I firmly believe that the reason for our place (in the table) is only that these players left.”
Uremovic made three appearances for United after Heckingbottom’s side acquired his services on a short-term basis.