Sorry mate, don’t mean to reply to all your posts. Haha
I’ve heard or read somewhere recently that one of the big differences between this project and say China, is that while China loves the premier league it never had any attachment to live Football in its own country and so the project failed. Whereas the Saudi league apparently sells out stadiums every week, pre Ronaldo, the fan base is there and excited to see the league they love grow.
Could be horseshit. But potentially some context.
CSL failed, or at least failed when it did, because the government put a block on chinese money leaving the country. The saudi league is the saudi government and its using their money. I dont think the comparisons are very relevant, other than to point out the challenge of a backwater establishing itself a relevant league
Sorry mate, I was specifically referring to the idea the Saudi’s have no cultural affinity to football.
From my understanding, the league sold out stadiums long before the star players started arriving etc etc etc.
Fair enough, but does having people in stadiums really explain why all of a sudden they’re spending ridiculous amounts to entice players?
According to the BBC, the reported offer to Hendo is an absurd 700,000 per week. 36.4 million pounds per year! Who could turn down that kind of money?
Has there ever been such thing as a reliable journo though? Isn’t every rumour just that, unreliable, until it turns into something concrete to which then you get every man jumping on the bandwagon?
Tweeting out a piece of “news” every time you know as a Journo is 99% done (formalites aside so let’s say maybe 98%) hours before…is that what we class as “reliable”?
Agents are wankers, the worst of the worst in football…feeding different information each time, no wonder you have conflicting news…Ben what’s his face Jacobs saying Hendo will NOT go to Saudi right after Chris Bascombe said he was more on the side of accepting.
There’s probably some truth into that thinking for Saudi Arabia, but it’s worth noting that a buying club isn’t the one who gets to set the price (unless they are RM). For El-Ettifaq to think they can get a captain with two years left on his contract for free is incredibly presumptuous. I don’t know what they were thinking. I hope we can get £20m for him and move on.
This is my understanding of middle eastern football - they are totally mad for it. Just because it doesn’t get televised here, doesn’t mean it’s total shit.
Was speaking to a chap from Iran a few weeks ago who told me the PL was shit, and that footy was best in the middle east. Who am I to argue - I don’t know anything about footy there - he lives here and therefore likely knows more about both leagues.
IMO, the good thing about football here is the frantic pace it gets played at… leads to more thrust. At what pace do the games get played at there in that sapping heat and humidity… snails pace maybe 
I suspect they have air con in stadia, as they did in Qatari stadia during the WC.
it’s schoolyard reporting at best. I hate this time of year. there’s no actual football to report on, so these fucking clowns sit on their deckchair on holidays on the piss, making up stories to get their advert revenue up enough to buy another bottle of bacardi.
With the rumours about a bid for fabinho for 40 mil and if we can get 30 mil for hendo my question is would you look to take these deals now and sell and use the money to buy younger players we have been linked with and bring the average age of the squad down and then really kick start hopefully the second great team jurgen builds, for example we sold fab and hendo and brought in lavia and colwell would we be in better shape as a squad come the start of the new season, i would feel a little uneasy losing two senior leadership players in the same window when we have already lost millie and replacing them with two young players, but to get that amount of money for players in their 30’s that are beyond their peak might be too good an offer to turn down.
What’s that got to do with this conversation?
Not in the UK, no.
A lot.
You seem to agree with the punishments being meted out for some “crimes” in SA…
I am pointing out that being gay often meets the same fate.
I really dont care if you think capital punishment fits for some crimes, but there is no seperation of what you may be executed for in that country.
So, it has lots to do with the conversation.
£100,000,000 tax free is pretty hard to turn down, especially when you expect to play less and less over the next few years.
But that’s not applicable in my country so utterly irrelevant. As you well know.
We should be asking for more!!
258 posts, wow, this must have something in it. A bit shocked.
I always thought the clubs agree a fee, then the player is allowed to speak with purchasing club. This appears to have been done the other way round.