Having spent last season in China with Shanghai Shenhua, Demba Ba has sealed a return to Turkish football by signing for Super Lig leaders Istanbul Basaksehir.
The club made their big announcement on Tuesday morning though stopped short of revealing Ba’s full identity by shrouding his face in a rubber owl mask.
— İstanbul Başakşehir (@ibfk2014) 22 January 2019
Basaksehir are nicknamed The Baykus (The Owls) so at least that kind of makes sense.
However, the club then went and destroyed all lingering remnants of reality by following the mask photo up with a truly perplexing ‘reveal’ video…
✍🏿 Hoş geldin @dembabafoot. pic.twitter.com/eGLl7BF8Lz
— İstanbul Başakşehir (@ibfk2014) 22 January 2019
Hold on, what precisely did The Godfather have to do with any of that? Mind-boggling.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that Ba has joined Basaksehir, where he’ll play alongside Emmanuel Adebayor, Gael Clichy, Emre Belezoglu, Eljero Elia, Kerim Frei, Gokhan Inler and Robinho in a magical ex-Premier League dream team.