Why did Granit Xhaka end up in Sunderland? The billionaire club owner, who plays in Zurich's amateur football, lured him.

The transfer of Granit Xhaka to Sunderland AFC is one of the most significant in Swiss football history. The decisive factor is the shared background of the two main players: On the club side is the 28-year-old majority owner and billionaire heir Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, who plays for FC Seebach in the 4th division of Zurich, and on the player side is the 32-year-old captain of the Swiss national team. Such a prominent agreement between fellow Swiss players is rare in top-level international football.

Xhaka, who has played many Champions League games, actually seems overqualified for the relatively ordinary league operations of a newly promoted team. Nevertheless, he agreed to a three-year contract with Sunderland. He is expected to earn up to 10 million Swiss francs per season – more than he recently earned at Leverkusen.

The base transfer fee to Leverkusen is 15 million Swiss francs, plus performance-related bonuses of up to 5 million. Louis-Dreyfus personally championed this financial feat for weeks. It is said that he persuaded his proud compatriot to return to England in several telephone conversations.

In doing so, he apparently conveyed to Xhaka the appreciation he may have recently been missing at the Bundesliga club. According to "Sport-Bild," Leverkusen's new coach Erik ten Hag didn't contact Xhaka for three weeks after his appointment. By the time the Dutchman later appealed for him to stay, the decision had long since been made.

Before his two-year stint with the Werkself, Xhaka played for Arsenal FC in London for seven years. During this time, he witnessed the radiance and tradition surrounding the iconic Sunderland club – even though Xhaka never played in Sunderland's venerable Stadium of Light. He missed Arsenal's away match, shortly before Sunderland's relegation in the summer of 2017, due to a red card suspension.

The "Black Cats" are a fixture in the northeast of England, with six league titles (the last in 1936) and gained notoriety through the Netflix series "Sunderland 'til I Die ." The Tyne-Wear derbies against Newcastle United, just a half-hour drive away, are among the highlights of the Premier League, igniting the deep-rooted rivalries between two passionate fan bases. Professional footballers regularly rave about the region's idiosyncratic charm and the warmth of its people.

It's hardly surprising, then, that Xhaka's arrival sparked euphoria among the long-suffering Sunderland Ultras in the economically underdeveloped working-class city. The Sunderland Echo newspaper commented that Xhaka was a "footballing and emotional game-changer" for the club—a player who was transforming its reputation decisively through his mere presence.

While Xhaka isn't the most expensive signing in the club's history, he's undoubtedly the most famous signing in many years. His status within the team is likely to be similar to that of a Sun King: Everything will revolve around him.

His experience and leadership skills are expected to lead him and his young teammates to survival. To achieve this, Louis-Dreyfus deliberately deviated from his strategy of signing almost exclusively up-and-coming talents. Xhaka is the oldest outfield player in the squad, having made more than five times as many Premier League starts as his teammates combined.

At the center, Xhaka replaces Jobe Bellingham , who left Sunderland for Dortmund for 30 million Swiss francs. With this record fee, plus the guaranteed TV revenue in the hundreds of millions, Louis-Dreyfus is aiming to raise the squad to the level of the competition. This transfer window, the club invested approximately 100 million Swiss francs in six signings, including a record 30 million for midfield talent Habib Diarra from Racing Strasbourg.

Such dizzying sums are no longer unusual for the Premier League newly promoted club; the situation is similar for fellow promoted sides Leeds and Burnley. Nottingham Forest was the last club to stay in the league after being promoted in the 2022/23 season – with an investment volume of CHF 200 million at the time.

With the Xhaka coup, Louis-Dreyfus, whose father Robert was an influential power broker in world football before his death, is demonstrating his commitment to Sunderland and his ambition to secure a permanent position in international football management. If he were solely interested in financial gain, he would have sold the club at a profit long ago. But he's staying – and thus taking the risk that the club will lose value again in the event of relegation.

That, in turn, would also thwart Xhaka's plans. It's hard to imagine that the ambitious player would add a year to his illustrious career in a second division. It remains to be seen how he'll cope with the fact that many of his new teammates—like coach Régis Le Bris—are barely at the level he's used to.

Xhaka's decision to join Sunderland may also have been influenced by considerations for his time after his professional career. In recent years, he has earned the second-highest coaching license in England and has repeatedly indicated that he could imagine a career as a coach later on. In a sense, he is already taking on such a role – due to his prominent position within the team. And he can even communicate with Louis-Dreyfus in management in Swiss German.