Speaking to Polish outlet SportoweFakty, Zahavi confirmed the Saudi club had put a two-year contract worth €100m per season on the table for the Poland international, an offer Lewandowski rejected in January because he wanted to keep playing for Barcelona.
The proposal was only available during that winter window and, as Zahavi had warned the player at the time, was no longer on the table by the time Lewandowski eventually left the club as a free agent this summer.
According to the agent, club president Joan Laporta was desperate to keep the 37-year-old for a further year and told Zahavi as much in December, but had no say over team selection, which remained the responsibility of sporting director Deco and head coach Hansi Flick.
"They could not guarantee Robert a place in the starting line-up, which was more important to him than money," Zahavi said, adding that Deco and Flick had a different vision for the striker's role going forward.
Once it became clear regular football would not be guaranteed, Lewandowski explored other options, with Zahavi revealing he held talks with senior figures at Milan and with then Juventus chief executive Damien Comolli, only to conclude that Serie A could no longer match the financial terms on offer elsewhere. He instead signed for MLS side Chicago Fire on a free transfer at the end of June, reportedly on the second-highest salary in the league behind Lionel Messi, bringing to a close a Barcelona spell in which he became one of the club's all-time leading scorers.
Zahavi also explained that Lewandowski had favoured Saudi Arabia over a move to the United States, largely due to the short time difference between Riyadh and Warsaw and the closer proximity to Poland, but that the kingdom's clubs had since scaled back their spending, a shift compounded by regional instability.
"A year ago, everything would have been completely different," he said. Al-Ittihad were not the only Saudi club to show concrete interest in Lewandowski at various points over the past year, with Cristiano Ronaldo's Al-Nassr also credited with an approach, though neither proposal ultimately proved enough to draw him away from Barcelona while a route back into the starting eleven still seemed possible.
Lewandowski's departure ends a four-season stint in Catalonia during which he became one of the club's all-time leading scorers, adding to a career that has brought 14 domestic league titles across Germany, Spain and Poland, the 2020 Champions League with Bayern Munich, and 167 caps and 89 goals for Poland.