Big ROM, buoyant Rome. Even for a footballer who has travelled so widely, been through various unveiling ceremonies – twice over at some of his past clubs – and commanded almost €340 million worth of combined transfer fees in his career, the reception given to Romelu Lukaku as he arrived in the capital of Italy struck him as exceptional.
There were thousands of fans at Ciampino airport ready to greet the Belgian’s flight from London, where Chelsea, who bought Lukaku for €113 million in 2021, have agreed a year-long loan with Roma. The Italian club’s owner, Dan Friedkin, a qualified pilot, had taken the aircraft’s controls during the journey.
Happily he made a steadier landing than some of the Roma supporters who had climbed on top of parked cars at Ciampino to get a better glimpse of the arriving superstar. Windscreens were broken as the fans descended from vehicle roofs.
More of this fervour will be concentrated into the Stadio Olimpico on Friday, when, ahead of kick-off of Roma’s Serie A fixture against AC Milan, Lukaku is officially presented to romanisti. “The welcome has made me really excited and motivated,” he said on arrival in the capital.
He will doubtless gesture towards the club badge, depicting the emblematic image of the supposed founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf who, according to myth, helped nurture them. Romulus, Remus, Romelu: There are several ways in which Roma’s signing of Lukaku makes sense.
For the player it distances him, at least for the season-long term of the loan, from Chelsea, where his second spell – he was also a teenage recruit at Stamford Bridge 12 years ago – turned out to be an unhappy stay.
He lost the backing of Thomas Tuchel, the manager who oversaw his arrival, and, four different head coaches later, Mauricio Pochettino took over this summer knowing an exit was being pursued by the player and the club hierarchy. Lukaku spent last season on loan at Inter Milan, from whom Chelsea had bought him for that huge fee.
If last season, hampered by injury and behind Edin Dzeko in the pecking order when it came to Inter’s starting XI for the Champions League final – Lukaku was used off the bench – was less successful than his previous two as a full Inter property, his enthusiasm for Italy still trumped any appetite for remaining in the Premier League with Chelsea.
At Roma, Lukaku is also reunited with a manager, in Jose Mourinho, who he knows as well as any. They go back to Lukaku’s first spell at Chelsea, where the then 20-year-old striker, fresh from an impressive loan at West Bromwich Albion was hopeful Mourinho’s second stint at Stamford Bridge would ease him up the career ladder. It was not so simple.
Mourinho gave Lukaku one big-stage moment, off the bench in a Uefa Super Cup final against Bayern Munich; in the deciding penalty shoot-out, Lukaku was assigned the spot-kick to take the tie-breaker into sudden death. Manuel Neuer saved it and within two days Lukaku was on his way to Everton on loan.
But that would merely be a pause in the Mou-and-Romelu story. His impressive leading of the line at Everton, who he later joined permanently, identified Lukaku as the sort of centre-forward Mourinho wanted to give impetus to Manchester United after Mourinho had been at United for a season.
Lukaku moved from Goodison Park to Old Trafford for €85 million in 2017 and scored 33 times in 76 matches under the Portuguese. After Mourinho was sacked a season and a half later, Lukaku remained in Manchester until joining Inter the following summer.
In talks last week, Mourinho was persuasive about Roma, just as he had been 12 months ago in luring Paulo Dybala, the Argentinian playmaker who left Juventus for a club not in the Champions League. But Roma have reached the finals of lesser Uefa competitions in the last two seasons. Lukaku, Mourinho believes, has the pedigree and the experience to lift them to a genuine challenge for the Italian title and certainly into Serie A’s top four.
Besides, with Tammy Abraham, the club’s first-choice centre-forward over the last two seasons, in long-term recuperation from a cruciate ligament injury, Roma need fresh firepower. They have it two-fold, with Lukaku following Sardar Azmoun, the striker who made global headlines last year for allying himself to anti-government protests in his native Iran. Azmoun has joined on loan from Bayer Leverkusen, though neither he or Lukaku are deemed match-fit enough to start this evening’s game.
Milan, for their part, were on Thursday still looking to increase their options up front, trying to iron out details around Azmoun’s Iran international colleague Mehdi Taremi’s proposed move from Porto. The clubs were negotiating a fee of around €15 million for the centre-forward.
MATCH INFO
Burnley 0
Man City 3
Raheem Sterling 35', 49'
Ferran Torres 65'
CHATGPT%20ENTERPRISE%20FEATURES
%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Enterprise-grade%20security%20and%20privacy%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Unlimited%20higher-speed%20GPT-4%20access%20with%20no%20caps%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Longer%20context%20windows%20for%20processing%20longer%20inputs%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Advanced%20data%20analysis%20capabilities%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Customisation%20options%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Shareable%20chat%20templates%20that%20companies%20can%20use%20to%20collaborate%20and%20build%20common%20workflows%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Analytics%20dashboard%20for%20usage%20insights%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Free%20credits%20to%20use%20OpenAI%20APIs%20to%20extend%20OpenAI%20into%20a%20fully-custom%20solution%20for%20enterprises%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
MATCH INFO
Day 2 at the Gabba
Australia 312-1
Warner 151 not out, Burns 97, Labuschagne 55 not out
Pakistan 240
Shafiq 76, Starc 4-52
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The biog
Favourite book: You Are the Placebo – Making your mind matter, by Dr Joe Dispenza
Hobby: Running and watching Welsh rugby
Travel destination: Cyprus in the summer
Life goals: To be an aspirational and passionate University educator, enjoy life, be healthy and be the best dad possible.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
