Al-Ittihad Confirm Fabinho Transfer In Announcement Video Featuring Live Tiger

Fabinho completed his £40 million transfer from Liverpool to Al-Ittihad on Monday.

The 29-year-old Brazilian midfielder has signed a contract with the Saudi Arabian champions until the summer of 2026.

Fabinho was unveiled as an Al-Ittihad player in a bizarre announcement video that featured him walking and petting a tiger.

Fabinho pictured petting a live tiger during a video posted by Al-Ittihad

Twitter/@ittihad_en

Al-Ittihad are nicknamed 'The Tigers' but there was another reason for the inclusion of a fearsome animal in Fabinho's announcement video.

Fabinho and his wife Rebeca Tavares own two French bulldogs. It was recently reported that Fabinho's move to Al-Ittihad had been in jeopardy due to laws in Saudi Arabia that banned the importation of 'dangerous and aggressive dogs'.

However, those reports proved to be false and Al-Ittihad mocked them in a video posted on social media.

Al-Ittihad's announcement video featured multiple screenshots of articles about Fabinho's supposedly dangerous animals before showing the player interacting with a live tiger.

At the end of the video, Fabinho said: "I am a tiger!"

Tavares reposted the video on her Instagram Story along with the caption: "Tigers, we are coming (our dogs are also coming)."

Rebeca Tavares, wife of soccer star Fabinho, pictured posing for a photo with her two French bulldogs in 2018

Instagram/@rebecatavares

Al-Ittihad later shared footage from behind the scenes that showed Fabinho petting three different tigers.

Fabinho is the fourth player to move to Al-Ittihad from a club in Europe this summer.

He has joined Real Madrid legend Karim Benzema, former Chelsea midfielder N'Golo Kante and ex-Celtic forward Jota at the Jeddah club.

Benzema has scored two goals in his first two games for Al-Ittihad.