{"id":9657,"date":"2017-12-17T22:25:32","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T13:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/?p=9657"},"modified":"2017-12-17T22:25:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-17T13:25:32","slug":"irfan-ikhsan-ahmad-set-join-leeds-united-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2017\/12\/17\/irfan-ikhsan-ahmad-set-join-leeds-united-trials\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0Irfan and Ikhsan Ahmad set to join Leeds United for trials"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sons of Singapore football legend\u00a0Fandi Ahmad,\u00a0Irfan and Ikhsan, could join English second-tier Championship side Leeds United for trials in March, according to reports from The Straits Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I feel confident about showing what I’m capable of as a defender, which I feel I have made a smooth conversion to from a forward,” Irfan spoke to The Straits Times.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t feel and look out of place in the AFC Cup games and international matches I’ve played in this year, and it’s a form of recognition when a top Thai team like Bangkok Glass are interested to sign me.<\/p>\n

“But my dream is to play in Europe, and while I think I can match the European players, I’m not going to sit back and I will be working hard to improve my strength before we go.”<\/p>\n

The obstacle for the siblings to ply their trade in England could be the strict work permit rules in England, the reports said.<\/p>\n

The non-EU players who want to play for an English club have to come from one the top 50 national teams in the FIFA rankings and\u00a0play a certain percentage of international games.<\/p>\n

However, Singapore are standing at number 170 in the world rankings, and both Irfan\u00a0and Ikhsan have had limited chance to compete in the international competitions.<\/p>\n

Last month, it has been reported that\u00a0Thai League 1 side Bangkok Glass<\/a> had set their eyes on Irfan, but he\u00a0revealed that he would consider the offer from Europe first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sons of Singapore football legend\u00a0Fandi Ahmad,\u00a0Irfan and Ikhsan, could join English second-tier Championship side Leeds United for trials in March, according to reports from The Straits Times. “I feel confident about showing what I’m capable of as a defender, which I feel I have made a smooth conversion to from a forward,” Irfan spoke to The Straits Times. “I didn’t feel and look out of place in the AFC Cup games and international matches I’ve played in this year, and it’s a form of recognition when a top Thai team like Bangkok Glass are interested to sign me. “But my dream is to play in Europe, and while I … Continue reading ”\u00a0Irfan and Ikhsan Ahmad set to join Leeds United for trials”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":9658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[855],"tags":[527,108,228],"class_list":["post-9657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rest-of-sea","tag-fandi-ahmad","tag-singapore","tag-transfer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}