El-Zakhem is a Tiger

Castleford Tigers are pleased to announce that Lebanese International, Elie El-Zakhem has joined the club on a two-year deal.

Recruitment news is sponsored by ORB Recruitment.

El-Zakhem is sponsored by Trinity House Orthodontics.

Elie will be joining the Fords from Australian side, North Sydney Bears, who reached the NSW Cup final in 2023. The Bears are the feeder club for the Sydney Roosters in the NRL.

El-Zakim represented Lebanon and scored in the World Cup win over Jamaica last year and so far has represented his national side on 5 occasions.

Elie spoke to ctrlfc.com ahead of the announcement and the Lebanese international cannot wait to get started.

“I’m pretty keen to get over to the UK! When I got the offer, I was pretty excited and tried getting it done straight away. It’ll be pretty good to showcase my talent in the Super League.”

“I’ve heard from players I know over there and it's good things I’m hearing I’m good friends with Jordan Rankin and he’s given me a bit of a rundown; he told me its good and I’ve heard a lot of good things from him.”

“I’ve been playing since under 7’s my brother signed me up for the local footy comp, I never wanted to play professionally to begin with but just fell in love with it and I’ve been playing at representative level since around age 16 and then reserve grade for the past 5 years or so.”

“I’ve spoken to the club I should be flying mid-November to start pre-season. I’ll be coming over alone so I’m a bit anxious but I’m excited at the same time to get started.”

“I’m good friends with Charbel Tasipale so it’ll be good to have him there to help me settle in.”

From all at the Tigers, we wish Elie safe travels over to the UK and we can’t wait to see him pull on the jersey at the Jungle in 2024.