Raja Club Athletic coach Fadlu Davids has admitted he and his technical team are looking at potential signings from the Betway Premiership in January in a bid to strengthen the Moroccan giants ahead of the second half of the season.
Davids took charge of Raja in September and has since collected 11 points from five Botola Pro matches. With Raja sitting in fourth place, five points behind leaders Wydad Athletic Club but with a game in hand, Davids admitted he is keen on strengthening the squad.
When asked by iDiski Times whether he could look again at players from the Premier Soccer League – after luring Neo Maema and Rushine De Reuck to Simba SC before his exit, Davids admitted they are browsing the South African market, but it must be a player to improve their starting XI and be able to handle the pressure in Morocco.
“Yes, I will always be. We are looking on all areas of the world, and we’re not closed to South Africa,” he said during a recent online conversation with the South African Football Journalists Association (SAFJA).
“It’s definitely a market that I know when you have two options, say, where one option may be a player you worked with, or a player you know, or a player you know the personality, where they will adapt to Morocco, because Morocco is also a different league, a different environment, where there’s no English, it’s French and Arabic.
“And these are all the criteria you make when signing. There are certain players from the PSL that will not be able to adapt to the league, and there are certain players that will.
“These are all the criteria we make. And yes, if there’s an opportunity and a player that is available and is willing to come and that fits into our criteria, we will definitely look at it.
“And these are the our recruitment meetings with our sporting director and the President and the board in relation to finding the perfect players to come in and not to only add depth into the squad, but to immediately affect the starting line-up. And it’s a certain type of player that needs to be recruited for January.
“You don’t really find the right players with the right mentality to come in and immediately impact your squad, and that is what we needed, so a very meticulous process into signing the right player for the club, within the right position, with the right mentality to be able to handle the pressures of big club like Raja, but also to be able to help us take that step to get back into Champions League.”