Henderson is the most disappointing here by a mile. Ultimately, his morals were tested and he made his choice. He has lost the trust of so many people who admired him. That's not tangible, and I'm sure the £700k a week probably provides some comfort to him, but it is so sad to see nonetheless
700k a week… I’d be over there in a heartbeat in the same situation
...as would everyone else on here with an opinion. If they say they wouldn't then I'll point to a string of massive liars.
If you offered me that now, of course.
If you offered it to me when I was worth millions, coming to the end of my career, settled in an area with young kids etc, I'm not sure I would.
Would I want to uproot everything to go to Saudi Arabia when I'm already worth millions, probably not.
But then I'm always surprised how much footballers chase being slightly more rich over lifestyle considerations - like when they move to a crap industrial town over a lovely coastal place (whilst still being paid thousands a week) etc, so might just be me.
I stopped being interested in the Premier League, except for the occasional cursory glance at match of the day or one of two live games a season, so the Saudi league and its effect on "our football" is greeted with total indifference. I would love Charlton to be in the Championship competing at the top, but getting into the Prem .. nah, not real football, not real competition.
Football at the top level was already screwed. I think the Saudi's might actually break it completely.
I almost feel glad to support a club at a level that isn't caught up in this bullshit
If the Saudi's carry on (which they will) then personally i don't think it will be too long before one of two things happens.
1. FIFA step in to introduce global FFP restrictions. 2. The major clubs in Europe kick off and demand that UEFA scrap their FFP restrictions.
You can't have one continent being allowed to spend billions whilst other continents in the same sport are restricted despite being able to afford it.
If you've got PL clubs owned by Abu Dhabi, Saudi, maybe soon Man U with Qatar, PSG with Qatar then i can't see them being too happy to just sit back and watch players go to Saudi for 1m a week when they could easily afford that without restrictions.
At the moment it isn't a problem because the majority of players going there are old, but if you start to get world class young players going there, then the big European clubs will revolt against the rules and something will have to change.
I stopped being interested in the Premier League, except for the occasional cursory glance at match of the day or one of two live games a season, so the Saudi league and its effect on "our football" is greeted with total indifference. I would love Charlton to be in the Championship competing at the top, but getting into the Prem .. nah, not real football, not real competition.
I completely agree with you. Would love for us to be back in the Championship. Not massively fussed about being in the Premier League again.
Henderson is the most disappointing here by a mile. Ultimately, his morals were tested and he made his choice. He has lost the trust of so many people who admired him. That's not tangible, and I'm sure the £700k a week probably provides some comfort to him, but it is so sad to see nonetheless
700k a week… I’d be over there in a heartbeat in the same situation
...as would everyone else on here with an opinion. If they say they wouldn't then I'll point to a string of massive liars.
If you offered me that now, of course.
If you offered it to me when I was worth millions, coming to the end of my career, settled in an area with young kids etc, I'm not sure I would.
Would I want to uproot everything to go to Saudi Arabia when I'm already worth millions, probably not.
But then I'm always surprised how much footballers chase being slightly more rich over lifestyle considerations - like when they move to a crap industrial town over a lovely coastal place (whilst still being paid thousands a week) etc, so might just be me.
If you're a top PL footballer coming to the end of your career you'll be worth millions. Let's for arguments sake say you're 35 and you're worth 75m. You have everything you've ever wanted and have so much money you don't even know how to spend it all. However Saudi come in and you can double your entire career earnings in 2 more years.
Of course you're likely to take it. It's only 2 years. Your family and kids don't need to be uprooted, they can stay where they are. You get time off, they get a lot of school holidays, you get the entire summer months off, you also travel by private jet and can fly home in 7 hours. It's easily manageable.
Henderson is the most disappointing here by a mile. Ultimately, his morals were tested and he made his choice. He has lost the trust of so many people who admired him. That's not tangible, and I'm sure the £700k a week probably provides some comfort to him, but it is so sad to see nonetheless
700k a week… I’d be over there in a heartbeat in the same situation
...as would everyone else on here with an opinion. If they say they wouldn't then I'll point to a string of massive liars.
If you offered me that now, of course.
If you offered it to me when I was worth millions, coming to the end of my career, settled in an area with young kids etc, I'm not sure I would.
Would I want to uproot everything to go to Saudi Arabia when I'm already worth millions, probably not.
But then I'm always surprised how much footballers chase being slightly more rich over lifestyle considerations - like when they move to a crap industrial town over a lovely coastal place (whilst still being paid thousands a week) etc, so might just be me.
If you're a top PL footballer coming to the end of your career you'll be worth millions. Let's for arguments sake say you're 35 and you're worth 75m. You have everything you've ever wanted and have so much money you don't even know how to spend it all. However Saudi come in and you can double your entire career earnings in 2 more years.
Of course you're likely to take it. It's only 2 years. Your family and kids don't need to be uprooted, they can stay where they are. You get time off, they get a lot of school holidays, you get the entire summer months off, you also travel by private jet and can fly home in 7 hours. It's easily manageable.
As I say, it's a personal thing. If I was worth £75m anyway, I don't need millions and millions more, I'm happy where I am etc.
Yes the kids would probably stay where they are, which is 90% of the reason I'd stay there too. Mine are annoying little gits half the time but I still want to be with them, not half the world away (well, maybe for a week or two, but...)
Mitrovic throwing a wobbly after feeling like he's been priced out of a move by Fulham.
When forcing a move, footballers can normally explain/pretend that it's about "ambition" i.e. I want to move to City/Real/Chelsea because I want to play with the best players, improve myself and win trophies, whereas with all these Saudi moves, the only ambition is to become even richer than they already are...
For most footballers it's only ever about the money. Ultimately it's a job and in a lot of cases their career is done by the time you're 35. It's also a career where you're one bad injury/incident away from an even earlier retirement (Dean Ashton, Ryan Mason, Fabrice Muamba as examples) so i'd never begrudge any player for taking the money when they can.
Mitrovic has 3 years left on his contract and by the time it ends he'll be almost 32 so you'd imagine this is his last chance for a big contract. He's been given the chance to earn in 3 years in Saudi what would take him 10 years at Fulham. He'd be crazy to turn that down.
He's on £80k to £100k a week currently, 99.9% of the population would consider his current salary a big contract
Henderson is the most disappointing here by a mile. Ultimately, his morals were tested and he made his choice. He has lost the trust of so many people who admired him. That's not tangible, and I'm sure the £700k a week probably provides some comfort to him, but it is so sad to see nonetheless
700k a week… I’d be over there in a heartbeat in the same situation
...as would everyone else on here with an opinion. If they say they wouldn't then I'll point to a string of massive liars.
If you offered me that now, of course.
If you offered it to me when I was worth millions, coming to the end of my career, settled in an area with young kids etc, I'm not sure I would.
Would I want to uproot everything to go to Saudi Arabia when I'm already worth millions, probably not.
But then I'm always surprised how much footballers chase being slightly more rich over lifestyle considerations - like when they move to a crap industrial town over a lovely coastal place (whilst still being paid thousands a week) etc, so might just be me.
There is, of course, the possibility that Henderson is playing the long game of biting his tongue to earn an astronomical amount and then coming back and using that money to further the causes he's been supporting. Money he never dreamed he'd be able to use for that purpose.
The question then is would those causes be open to receiving the money earned whilst playing in Saudi, from Henderson, if that were the case?
PSG have accepted the bid of £259m. Does Mbappe want to go to Al Hilal though?
Although I can’t personally see the desire for an approaching retirement age player going there as others have said surely they have enough money already. But if this guy goes at his age it’s just bollox. There must be more to it, maybe the super league is going to be announced again ? I just can’t see a player like him going there to play in a 4 club league with crowds without atmosphere
Dunno if this has been mentioned earlier in the thread, but I was watching France vs Jamaica in the WWC yesterday and the France coach is the guy that was in charge of Saudi Arabia at the Qatar WC. Apparently he walked out on a VERY lucrative contract with SA to take charge of the French Women's team. I just thought that was mad (on a financial level for him)...going in the opposite direction!!!
Edit. Just googled him and he was in charge from 2019 until earlier this year, so sure he'd earned enough to go do something else, without worrying abt the electricity bill!
I don’t even think it’s about having him in the league, playing matches.
It’s all about making everyone look at them by making a statement. And if that’s the objective then it will work.
This. Obviously it’s not the same for many reasons but see the interest garnered in MLS when Becks and Henry went there and how it was maintained after they left.
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I almost feel glad to support a club at a level that isn't caught up in this bullshit
If you offered it to me when I was worth millions, coming to the end of my career, settled in an area with young kids etc, I'm not sure I would.
Would I want to uproot everything to go to Saudi Arabia when I'm already worth millions, probably not.
But then I'm always surprised how much footballers chase being slightly more rich over lifestyle considerations - like when they move to a crap industrial town over a lovely coastal place (whilst still being paid thousands a week) etc, so might just be me.
1. FIFA step in to introduce global FFP restrictions.
2. The major clubs in Europe kick off and demand that UEFA scrap their FFP restrictions.
You can't have one continent being allowed to spend billions whilst other continents in the same sport are restricted despite being able to afford it.
If you've got PL clubs owned by Abu Dhabi, Saudi, maybe soon Man U with Qatar, PSG with Qatar then i can't see them being too happy to just sit back and watch players go to Saudi for 1m a week when they could easily afford that without restrictions.
At the moment it isn't a problem because the majority of players going there are old, but if you start to get world class young players going there, then the big European clubs will revolt against the rules and something will have to change.
Of course you're likely to take it. It's only 2 years. Your family and kids don't need to be uprooted, they can stay where they are. You get time off, they get a lot of school holidays, you get the entire summer months off, you also travel by private jet and can fly home in 7 hours. It's easily manageable.
Yes the kids would probably stay where they are, which is 90% of the reason I'd stay there too. Mine are annoying little gits half the time but I still want to be with them, not half the world away (well, maybe for a week or two, but...)
The question then is would those causes be open to receiving the money earned whilst playing in Saudi, from Henderson, if that were the case?
Why wouldn’t he go there on loan for a year ?
He gets a massive wedge
The Saudis get their marquee player and publicity
He then goes to Madrid
all four parties get what they consider a result
Edit. Just googled him and he was in charge from 2019 until earlier this year, so sure he'd earned enough to go do something else, without worrying abt the electricity bill!
It’s all about making everyone look at them by making a statement. And if that’s the objective then it will work.