Sadiq El Fitouri's wild path from obscurity to dream Man Utd deal and back again

Mention the name Sadiq El Fitouri and most Manchester United fans will probably not even recognise it.

Likewise Manchester City supporters. And probably those of Salford City too.

Innfact, the only bunch of football fans who may well recall El Fitouri in any great detail are supporters of Chesterfield - the reasons for which we'll get on to shortly.

Let's start at the beginning first though.

El Fitouri was born in Libya but grew up in Manchester, specifically in Old Trafford. He was a full-back who had joined Manchester City upon leaving school.

Like many young players, the dream he was sold soon ended once he was released by the Premier League giants.

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He went back to playing recreationally but his thirst to make it wasn't dampened by City's decision. Not long after, he decided to get in touch with Salford about a potential trial. This was at a time when the club were still operating in non-league and it was very much in the early days of the takeover by United's famed Class of '92 contingent.

The aforementioned trial proved a success, and Salford signed him on although he wasn't given a contract. He initially struggled to make the breakthrough under boss Phil Power.

What happened next would lead to El Fitouri eventually being unveiled as a Manchester United player - something he could have scarcely believed when he sent that speculative email to Salford.

Power was axed and two of the owners, United royalty Paul Scholes and Phil Neville, took interim charge of Salford.

El Fitouri played just one solitary game for the Ammies, against Kendal Town. It was during that match that the onlooking Neville and Scholes concurred that El Fitouri was "far too good for this level".

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News in 2015 about that game, Neville said: "Within 35 minutes we'd both seen enough for him to show us that he was far too good for this level."

In what was becoming a whirlwind of events, Scholes and Neville quickly used their contacts to sort out a trial at Man Utd for the youngster.

Warren Joyce, working at United with the reserves and under-21s, agreed to take a look at him. The subsequent trial was a success and El Fitouri was confirmed as a United player - just three weeks after that very first email he sent to Salford.

He was 20 at the time and had just penned an 18-month contract with the biggest club in the world.

"It can be daunting. He's gone from being unemployed to training with the biggest club in the world," Neville observed about the eye-raising transfer.

Indeed, given how El Fitouri's career has panned out since, there is little doubt that it was a case of too much, too soon.

He never got near the first team, and was consigned to the reserves, where he struggled to make an impression. Academy football is undoubtedly a world away from non-league in terms of players' skillsets and let's not forget El Fitouri had barely kicked a ball, even in non-league.

He was effectively a novice, albeit one with talent, who was pushed to the front of the queue by Salford's owners thanks to their canny networking.

Nevertheless, El Fitouri was surprisingly named in United's 25-man squad for the 2016-17 Premier League campaign under Jose Mourinho, but he would never make it into a senior matchday squad.

To no real shock, he was released in early 2017 and was snapped up by League One strugglers Chesterfield.

However, he made just two appearances for the Spireites before bizarrely going AWOL towards the end of that season.

Chesterfield director Ashley Carson said at the time: "The player will be fined in accordance with our code of conduct and we will be writing to him to confirm our position.

"We will then reserve our right to take further action if deemed appropriate."

He was released at the end of the season and has since gone on to sign for a club in his native Libya, before moving to a Romanian outfit.

His last known club was in Sudan when he was reported to have signed a two-year contract, back in 2019.

In a promotional video to unveil his signing he said: "I'm very happy and pleased to be joining and hopefully I want to help the team win a lot of games."

The scarcity of information and mystique surrounding El Fitouri's whereabouts right now ties in pretty well with how he initially came onto the scene.

A player who returned to obscurity almost as quickly as he emerged from it.