18 Jan 2024 19:22:27
This Saudi football malarkey is a god send for mediocre coaches
Coach "supremo" Stevie G one of the highest paid coaches in world on £15 million a year . hasn't won in 8 matches. rewarded today with 3 year extension to 2027
Loadsamoney.
18 Jan 2024 22:19:13
I once ran a poor veterans 5th division Sunday team to a couple of very ordinary wins.
Maybe I could get gig out there.
Mind it's a dry country.
I'll give a miss.
18 Jan 2024 22:23:20
Sad we missed out Baz?
18 Jan 2024 22:35:31
They pay them to come, they pay them to leave. Best job on ?.
18 Jan 2024 23:56:03
Is anyone actually interested in Saudi football?
19 Jan 2024 00:08:30
As I've said before it's the fans that make football. We make the passion and create atmosphere and drama.
You can't make an elite football league in a country that is indifferent to football. 8000 is their average attendance. Some non league sides can beat that.
What will the Saudis do next? Rent a crowd? Pay people to watch the games?
It has taken maybe 50 years of the mls to get regular decent crowds. Still it's not an attractive league. Still only enticing aging stars to league.
The Saudis can buy all the stars from all the leagues in the world and they won't make a good competition. because they have no fans.
19 Jan 2024 00:36:21
Yep Ani
But if I ever do get the call from the Sheikhs, you can be my assistant Ani ?.
Kerching $$$.
19 Jan 2024 01:27:14
Impressive coaching record Ben.
It does all seem a waste of time and money the Saudi league.
Spose all aging footballers are loving it. A last hooray.
For that reason I Spose it’s useful.
19 Jan 2024 02:45:32
Hi Baz, thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass!
I worked around the Middle East a lot throughout my career. I worked in Saudi for a short time in the early 2000’s. Very surreal. I hadn’t really appreciated the place until I got there. At the time, women were totally forbidden to work and could only be seen in public with their husband. (It’s a little different now) . Our office had machine gun posts, as well as anti- aircraft guns in the garden. “For the western press to write about…” they said.
The people we worked with were very friendly. We were free to be Westerners in our hotels and that was it, everywhere else we were watched like hawks and escorted everywhere. Exactly the same however, as it was in Israel at the time when we worked there. You travelled with multiple passports because the very last thing you needed was an Israel stamp and vice-versa.
On my last visit (though I didn’t know it was) , as we were driving through the border post, we were taken from our car (3 of us) and taken to what I could only describe as a jail cell (individually) and left us there for (5-6) hours. No one spoke to us and then just like that, we were taken back to the car and let through the border. Still today, I have no idea what went on that day. As daft as it sounds now, we were crossing the border without an armed guard, which we had wherever we went and perhaps that was the issue?
I know today, it’s a lot different, but I’m not sure the 60 year old me today, would have done those trips, the guy in his 30’s did, if I had appreciated what was really going on.
I don’t really understand these super-wealthy sportsman being attracted there aside from the money; even though it was relatively lucrative for “ordinary” folks back in the day. These guys earn tremendous amounts already without the need to work there. I guess if the country is going to spend vast sums regardless, it might as well be them taking it I suppose.
19 Jan 2024 04:26:16
Doesn't help crowds that average away game is an airplane journey away.
19 Jan 2024 06:33:45
Multiple passports Ani?
Hmm intriguing.
19 Jan 2024 08:39:09
I’m guessing press rather than secret agent. I mean if it was secret agent. He couldn’t have been that good as he just told us. Press or medic maybe ?.
19 Jan 2024 09:03:51
Saudi league is the same as the Chinese Super League of a few years ago.
Chinese Super League has been and gone and I believe the Saudi League will folllow suit over the next few years. There will always be names at the end of their career who go for the money, but many will realise it’s worse than Sunday League, just like the MLS, but I suspect people would rather live in the US instead of Saudi (I know I would)
19 Jan 2024 09:27:50
Yes Baz; it is totally permissible if you regularly travel to this region. I had three different British passports, one for when I was visiting Israel, One for travelling to Saudi and another for when I visited Iraq. [though ultimately I never did visit Iraq] You wouldn't get into Saudi if your passports had Israeli stamps in there and vice-versa. Back in the day, it was very difficult to get into Israel without multiple interviews [due to the sensitive [geographical] areas our worked involved. If there was more than one of you visiting, you would be interviewed separately and your stories corroborated. Once when we were on the plane waiting to take-off, we were all taken off and re-interviewed because we were leaving 2 days earlier then we said when we came in [we finished the work early]. Suffice to say, we missed the flight and ended up on the one we originally planned!
All this was done by 17-18 years old doing their national service; Surreal really, now when I think back.
Out hosts [In Israel], would have to disassemble their automatic weapons [these were ordinary members of the public] before meeting us at the airport, as operational weapons were forbidden at the airport; once we were outside the airport, their first task was to reassemble them!
I turned down numerous opportunities to work permanently in the region for what was a small fortune back in the day [5x what I was earning in the UK travelling there]. I could never do it. and didn't.
19 Jan 2024 09:39:24
Ask him but he would have to kill you afterwards. I wasn't a spy but i would regularly travel over middle eastern borders without a passport on me. :-)
19 Jan 2024 14:21:19
Aus and Chippenham ?.
Ani in sectet service? ?. nah . meh.
19 Jan 2024 15:01:32
The name's 4ni, Ani4ni.
19 Jan 2024 16:09:53
I do think the logistical issues will be the biggest problem with the Saudi league.
One thing I will say about the Chinese Super League that differentiates them is the tax. Chinese teams had money, but when they bought players they then had to pay a super tax on said players which was equivalent to the total transfer fee, so a 50m player could cost 100m. Became unsustainable.
"Chinese football regulator introduces 100% tax on foreign player signings. The new tax rule means that any loss-making clubs buying foreign players will have to pay the same amount as the transfer fee into a fund which would help develop young Chinese players. "
Saudi league won't have the exact same issue, but I imagine will eventually peter out in a similar fashion.
19 Jan 2024 19:22:21
George ???????.
19 Jan 2024 22:00:06
Thanks ? bro Baz.
19 Jan 2024 22:01:59
Nothing as sexy as that; I was the Global Engineering Director for a multinational engineering firm; we designed and constructed large water and waste water treatment systems. Sometimes for cities and municipalities, e.g. Muscat, Baghdad and Ashdod in the Middle East amongst numerous others in the region as well as for industrial customers, e. g. Intel, Coca Cola, Facebook, Philips and the like.
In the UK, I suspect most of you are drinking water treated in our systems, drink beer and cider through the same but on a smaller scale.
I spent 40 years from school, left as MD to basically retire, but still run a small consulting business in the same field.
I can tell you, before the internet, it was hard being a Leeds fan; I never had a clue what we had done, often finding out by scanning international newspapers days after the event. It was virtually impossible back in the day in these regions to make calls back home more than one or two times a week. I remember famously discovering we had beaten London one week according to a local African newspaper (Arsenal! )