Middle east football

The sooner we can stop paying regressive totalitarian regimes money, ignore them completely, and let the now inevitable climate change make them completely uninhabitable, the better.

 

The one thing it has done is give really bad run clubs a way out. Chelsea looked in a real mess for many years to come but they’ve managed to move on their injury prone players & their flops to the Saudi’s.

I think it’s a far more serious threat than the Chinese league. Apart from Ramires, Oscar & Carrasco I can’t think of many quality players who went there anywhere near the prime of their careers. It tended to be players after one last pay day.

I’d imagine you’ll get players living in Dubai where they all seem to go on holiday nowadays & commuting to their clubs in Saudi.

 

Sounds like LGBT advocate Jordan Henderson is on his way. The hypocritical ****.

 

I can't for the life of me grasp the attraction of Dubai. There's a whole world to explore and folk go to somewhere hot with shops.

 

I agree. It doesn’t appeal to me one bit but all these footballers seem to love it.

 

Think they'll get bored living there.

 

My sister lives out there and loves it. It wouldn’t be for me, but she lived for 2 years in Qatar and then moved to Dubai which she says is much more westernised.

 

Saudi are state owned though mate. They have absolute unlimited wealth, even compared to the Chinese clubs. I do think they'll spend for a good while. Its clearly sports washing though- and I think in a couple of years the footballing authorities will regulate them, especially if its true they'll sneak into the European competitions which is apparently their aim

 

Yeah Dubai the place where reality Z listers spent the pandemic for "work" to avoid restrictions back home.

 

Read today that team Ronaldo signed for has been banned from registering new players by FIFA due to owing Leicester money from 2018, so sounds like they are already being regulated.
Be interesting to see if they comply or try to ignore.

 

She’s definitely not a celebrity. And actually had to come back to Blighty in the pandemic because they refused to let her back into Dubai from the Seychelles.
In Dubai during the pandemic they had people disinfecting the streets every night thought to help reduce other restrictions. If wearing a mask is too much for some folk here, imagine doing it in 50 degree heat

 

I've been twice and really like it but wouldn't want to live there.

 

Mahrez looking like the latest player to be off there £86 million

 

Great player but id snatch their hands off for 86 million at his age - 32 year old bit-part player. Mental. His wages will be astronomical, even by Saudi Standards at that price tag

 

Their entire wealth is based on oil - which is a finite, limited resource. There is still a lot of it underground, but the market is going to diminish as many countries are getting rid of new petrol/diesel cars in the next 10-20 years.

 

They've already got trillions bud, and they've got about 30 trillion left in natural resources. They will be able to sell every last drop of it - perhaps cheaper to some other countries/continents, but they will. They're going nowhere in footballing terms, if they don't want to - 100% should be regulated within a couple of years.

 

I agree paid well over the odds but still another decent player left the Prem for that league. Mirtovic