Karim Benzema said he wants to bring trophies to his new Saudi Pro League club Al Hilal, which he called the “Real Madrid in Asia.”

The French forward turned down a contract extension to remain at Al Ittihad beyond June and instead joined Saudi Pro League leaders Al Hilal on Monday.

Speaking for the first time since his move, the former Madrid captain and 2022 Ballon d’Or winner told the club’s website: “It’s good. I’m happy to be here. After my first training with the team, with the coach, I’m so happy and glad to be a part of this team.

“It’s a good team, with a good history. They have won a lot of trophies.

“It’s similar, like Real Madrid in Asia. Everything is good, the fans are good, they play well, they have good players, they have a good mentality.

“I liked this team from before. I used to play against them with Madrid and it was not an easy game. It was a good game so I have good memories. Today I’m happy because I’m a player of Al Hilal.”

According to sources, Benzema, 38, felt disrespected with the contract extension Al Ittihad had offered him.

The Al Ittihad deal from the Saudi Pro League, which handles the contracts of the main players in PIF(Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund)-owned clubs, would effectively have seen the veteran striker play for free, sources said.

Benzema, who had offers from European clubs, decided to stay in Saudi Arabia, partly because his image rights deal there is until 2030.

His move to Al Hilal, which PIF orchestrated, has reportedly angered Benzema’s former Madrid teammate Cristiano Ronaldo, who captains rivals Al Nassr.

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According to sources, Ronaldo refused to play for his club on Monday in protest because PIF was not investing enough in Al Nassr and instead was giving an advantage to Al Hilal.

Ronaldo is looking to win his first major title with Al Nassr and his team are second in the Saudi Pro League standings, one point adrift of Al Hilal.

Benzema, who was instrumental in Al Ittihad winning the league crown and the King’s Cup last season, said he is hungry for more silverware.

“[It’s a] clear message,” he said. “You know my mentality. I have a lot of ambition. I will work, I will give everything on the pitch. I will help this team and, inshallah, win trophies. For me it’s more important to bring trophies. As I said before, we have a good team, good fans and together, inshallah, we will do it.”

Benzema arrived in Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2023 having won 25 trophies with Madrid, including four LaLiga, three Copa del Rey, and five Champions League titles.

He has eight goals in 14 league games this season.

His first game with Al Hilal will be Thursday’s league encounter at Al Okhdood.

Although Floyd Mayweather Jr. made hundreds of millions of dollars during his professional boxing career and topped the Forbes list as the highest-paid athlete from 2012 to 2014, the boxer said he has been shortchanged and filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Showtime.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday and obtained by ESPN, seeks to “recover hundreds of millions of dollars in misappropriated funds and damages resulting from a long-running and elaborate scheme of financial fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and conspiracy orchestrated by Floyd J. Mayweather’s former manager and advisor, Al Haymon, with the knowing and substantial participation and aid of Defendants Showtime Networks Inc. and Stephen Espinoza, among others.”

Mayweather, 48, claims to be owed “at least” $340 million and cites a “complex web of hidden accounts, unauthorized transactions and deliberate concealment of financial records” as the reason he believes he has been defrauded from those funds.

Haymon is not named as a defendant in the complaint.

Espinoza didn’t respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

In 2013, Mayweather signed a 30-month, six-fight deal with Showtime that was, at the time, the richest for an individual athlete. He fought Robert Guerrero, Canelo Alvarez, Marcos Maidana (twice), Manny Pacquiao and Andre Berto during that deal and also faced UFC superstar Conor McGregor on Showtime PPV.

Mayweather fought eight times on Showtime PPV, with the Pacquiao bout still standing as the highest-grossing pay-per-view in history with over 4.4 million purchases and $410 million in revenue generated. Mayweather reportedly earned around $250 million for that fight alone.

In the lawsuit, Mayweather claims Showtime and Espinoza worked in tandem to divert the boxer’s earnings into accounts controlled by Haymon and failed to provide financial transparency. Mayweather claims that he has “suffered enormous financial harm” and is missing at least $340 million from his reported $1.2 billion in career fight purses.

Mayweather retired from professional boxing in 2017 with a 50-0 record but has competed in several exhibitions since.

An exhibition fight with Mike Tyson was announced last September for Spring 2026, but no date or location has materialized since. Reports surfaced Tuesday that Mayweather would face K-1 kickboxing legend Mike Zambidis on June 27 in Greece, but there has been no formal announcement of that fight either.

ESPN’s Michael Rothstein contributed to this report.

• Pakistan stands in solidarity with Bangladesh after ICC expels team.
• Politics should have no place in the field of sports: PM Shehbaz.
• Pakistan team currently in Sri Lanka to participate in T20 World Cup.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif confirmed on Wednesday that Pakistan will not play against India in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, emphasising that the decision was made after much deliberation.

“Politics should have no place in the field of sports,” the prime minister said while explaining Pakistan’s stance on the 20-team tournament. He made the statement while addressing the federal cabinet meeting.

He further stressed that the country should stand with Bangladesh in the matter.

Pakistan had decided to boycott the February 15 match against arch-rivals India to show solidarity with Bangladesh, which the International Cricket Council (ICC) kicked out of the tournament after rejecting Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) request to move their matches to a venue outside India.

The cricketing body then replaced Bangladesh with Scotland in the tournament, stating that it was not feasible to revise the schedule so close to the February 7 — start of the World Cup.

Meanwhile, multiple other factors influenced Pakistan’s decision to boycott the match, including ICC’s perceived biased stance towards Bangladesh playing a central role, with government sources noting that the Pakistani team was instructed not to take the field against India on February 15 as “a form of protest”.

The sources said that ICC chief Jay Shah’s partial decisions had effectively turned the International Cricket Council into an extension of the Indian cricket board.

They further said that these biased decisions have undermined the principles of fairness and equality, accusing the ICC of applying different standards to different countries on its platform.

Since then, the ICC, in its statement, has expressed hope that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) would work towards a “mutually acceptable resolution”.

While recognising the prerogative of national governments, the ICC publicly urged the PCB to reconsider, arguing that the decision harms the sport and its global fanbase.

The council encouraged the Pakistani board to pursue a mutually acceptable solution that protects the interests of all stakeholders in the game, saying that the boycott decision was not “in the interest of the global game or the welfare of fans worldwide, including millions in Pakistan”.

Currently, the national team is present in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to partake in the highly anticipated T20 World Cup, scheduled to be co-hosted by Sri Lanka and India from February 7 to March 8.