StanBalaban

Ah that makes sense. Ta.

Guessing his move must be near seeing as he's not gone to the US?

Just noticed at Al Ettifaq is right near the bridge into Bahrain About a 45 minute drive to the Four Seasons, or 50 mins to the Ritz Carlton in Manama where it can get quite lively. Expect Henderson and Stevie Me to rock up there a fair bit.

We also need to take comfort that we have a vastly experienced figure in Mochi leading the negotiations. There's so many facets to contract negotiations that, when it gets to advanced stages, it becomes a constant dialogue where both sides try to figure out where the flexibilities are in the other party's red lines. Add to this, you would expect multiple primary and contingency offers being concurrently explored, along with some players being up for sale whilst wanting to tie others up on new contracts, you can easily see why these things can take time. The noise about other parties in the mix is just that.

If I may play devil's advocate for a moment.... I think it would be fair to say that most footballers aren't born into money. A Premier League salary is beyond most people's wildest dreams, but with agents controlling the show most of the time, you have to wonder how much of the decision is being made by the player themselves. You look at our Wesley, or (another Wesley) Fofana, or what thankfully wasn't the outcome for Sebastien Haller but could've been, and the next 4 year contract may end up being the last. You look at l=players like Marv that send a sizeable percentage of his income back to help his community in Zimbabwe. There's many like him too. At £80k per week over 4 years is nearly £17m gross. I know there's various tax mitigating options available, but let's say £10m in the pocket. A huge amount of money. Also, surprisingly easy for a 20-something millionaire with a large entourage to piss that money away. At let's say £200k per week in Saudi over 4 years, tax-free means over £41 million in the bank. That's enough for a good proportion of players (and 100% of agents) to at least consider it and, for every good player that goes over there, the league gets stronger. As a professional sports person, I would hope they would want to challenge themselves at the very highest level, but I can also understand those that would be tempted to take the money. For a bit of context, I work with a few companies controlled by the PIF on the investment side of things. Whilst ultimately everything leads back financially to the house of Saud, the decision and strategy C-level members tend to be western (predominantly Aussies, Brits and Americans). They operate very much in the interests of growing the fund itself, and a huge part of that is built around growing the reputation of Saudi Arabia for tourism, commerce and healthcare. Dubai has long since shifted it's income stream to being a global hub for most multinational companies, attracting workers from all over the world which allows further investments into F&B and hospitality to attract holiday makers. Conversely, I can't imagine many people putting KSA at the top of their holiday wishlists. The football is just part of the wider program, along with Neom, the Red Sea resorts, aggressive TV marketing campaigns, desert and wadi adventure trails, the boxing and golf, which are all designed to change the perception of the country. As a commercial region, it dwarfs the UAE but private businesses still have to pay a sizeable premium to get people to work in Saudi over somewhere like Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Qatar. Whilst the Kingdom might have deep pockets, these private companies don't, and they are putting pressure on the government saying that if they want the big US and European companies to have a hub in Saudi, they can't sustain paying over the odds for staff because people think the place is a backwards shithole. The motivation is to push Saudi as a lifestyle destination that global employees would like happily choose to live and work, whilst earning a higher, tax-free income. That's their primary goal - it all comes to investing their money now, so that they can make more money when the oil demand runs down.

Yeah but apart from those players..... and Berbatov, de Jong, Pulisic.... ....Kompany, Joelinton.... ....Klinsmann, Ballack and Gundogan.... there's hardly any examples at all.

Have already seen Gundogan, and could yet lose Mahrez, Walker and Silva. KDB is now 32 too. Although they've signed Kovacic, I'm surprised they haven't been more active in the market yet.

I would imagine that Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal have a huge amount of clout in the PL. Newcastle's finances and attempts to circumvent FFP threatens those clubs the most, so I can't imagine them laying down and taking it lightly.

The league in the UAE is nowhere near the level of football in Saudi, in terms of finances, attendance or number of teams. Not really possible, thankfully.

Be interesting to see what the reaction to the PL from clubs like Arsenal, Liverpool, Man U, Spuds and ourselves will be if they shuffle money around like a deck of cards.

Is this like that gold and white dress, as those tracksuits are blue to me.

Should probably start by learning how to pronounce "belligerent".

Snap.

Manages to make an athlete look like he's got a beer belly. Not great for the fans.

https://www.thisisanfield.com/2023/07/al-ettifaq-allocated-transfer-budget-of-13-2m-not-nearly-enough-for-jordan-henderson/

Is the pre-season match package a separate subscription?

App is a disaster for me, both in terms of reliability and UI. Keeps crashing on multiple Android devices.

I agree that the Chelsea team itself is not in good shape, I was more commenting on the financial aspect. A top player at Chelsea can look towards 300k per week basic plus living in London, and Chelsea's global following at the moment unfortunately dwarfs ours (for example 3m follow our Instagram page, compared to 40m following theirs). Personal sponsorship and endorsements at Chelsea are worth a fortune to a player. There's no way Grealish was ever going to land a Gucci contract whilst at Villa. Now, given what Unai is cooking, we're becoming more and more attractive with each passing day, but let's not say that Chelsea are an automatic dismissal from the best players from us, Spurs, Brighton, West Ham and others just yet. However, I don't think Emi would be considering a move FWIW. Not only do I get the impression that he and his family are settled, I also haven't seen anything to suggest we're looking for a top GK.

Cologne might be nearer to the club, but we don't know if it's the most convenient airport to where the player lives. I'm sure someone will find that out soon enough.

To be fair, he'd probably double his wages and get far more commercial deals at Chelsea if he was so inclined. However, he seems happy here and will be playing in Europe this season, as part of a project that he's a key figure in. Given his attention to detail, I don't think Don Unai would leave much to chance. If Emi was looking at options, you can bet the transfer fee would be ridiculous and Monchi and Emery would have a plan in place. Unlike maybe other positions on the park, a goalkeeper role cannot just be absorbed by the rest of the squad. For rumours of Emi moving away, there must also be rumours of us looking for a new #1 keeper - of which there are none. I've yet to see any links to the likes of Raya at Brentford for instance. Ideally, I'd love Emi to be offered a new contract soon, along with Ollie and a couple of other key players.

Or Chelsea and Newcastle.

Judging by that picture he seems to be a right tap in merchant

Dan Wooton getting exposed for being a creepy, narcissistic, devious word removed on Twitter. Good.

North Africa.

Sounds like a bit of a Luxor-y player.