Sydney rush to reward Socceroos sensation Grant with new multi-year deal

Sydney FC are moving to tie-up breakthrough Socceroos defender Rhyan Grant to a new three-year deal in the wake of his standout performances at the AFC Asian Cup.

Rhyan Grant in action for the Socceroos Source: Getty Images

The marauding mullet was one of Australia’s few success stories in the UAE, alongside Chris Ikonomidis and Awer Mabil, as he took advantage of an injury to nominal first choice Josh Risdon to seemingly make the right-back spot his own.

He started in every game, linking up almost telepathically with Ikonomidis in five performances of maturity and menace going forward interlaced with doggedness in his defensive work.

Already Sydney’s longest serving player by some stretch as he enters his eleventh year with the club, Grant, 27, is attracting interest in Europe and Asia.

He is out of contract at season’s end, hence Sydney’s urgency to conclude a contract extension for the player whose emergence as Graham Arnold’s new go-to-man down the right is all the more remarkable in the light of his recovery from TWO knee reconstructions.

Grant’s aspirations of a possible move to Europe or the United Kingdom are complicated by his lack of a European passport, making a switch to Asia - were he to leave Sydney FC - the most likely destination where he to seek an overseas adventure.

Grant, who turns 28 later this month, has already made 155 A-League appearances for the Sky Blues, and is expected back in action after his Asian Cup exploits in this evening’s visit of Melbourne City at Jubilee Stadium.

Reluctant to go into specifics, Sky Blues CEO Danny Townsend said: “We’re in process of extending a bunch of our off contract players.”