When Jordan Henderson completed his controversial move to Al-Ettifaq last summer, it was generally assumed that the 33-year-old would see out his playing career in the Middle East. Instead, his Saudi Arabia sojourn lasted just 175 days.
The former Liverpool captain joined Ajax last week, citing footballing and family reasons as factors behind his return to Europe less than six months after signing a three-year contract with the Saudi Pro League club managed by Steven Gerrard.
Posting on X (formerly Twitter), Henderson insisted “it wasn’t an easy decision but one that I feel is best for me and my family,” before stating during his unveiling in Amsterdam that his decision to leave Al-Ettifaq “had nothing to do with anything but football.”
Henderson was not the first high-profile star to move to Saudi Arabia (Cristiano Ronaldo has predictably taken credit for that), nor was he the most glamorous player to head there when the country’s football revolution rocketed.
But he is the first big name to leave and others, including Karim Benzema (who plays for Al-Ittihad) and Aymeric Laporte (Al-Nassr), have been tipped to follow his lead.
Over the weekend, Spanish publication AS ran an interview with Laporte in which he was quoted as saying “there are many players that are discontented [in Saudi Arabia],” that he had “hoped for something different,” in terms of his quality of life there and that he could look to leave in the future if the “dynamic continues”.
The ex-Manchester City defender has since distanced himself from those quotes.
Nevertheless, Henderson’s desertion is a blow to the Saudi Pro League’s credibility and its attempts to market itself as a utopian fairyland for famous footballers. Maybe the reality doesn’t quite match what is advertised on the Visit Saudi brochure.
Henderson’s arrival was significant as it demonstrated Saudi Arabia’s increasing pull to European stars. The Saudi Pro League has recently upped the foreign player quota in club squads from eight to 10, presumably in preparation for another summer splurge, and historically those precious spots were filled almost exclusively by players from South America, Africa and Asia, which in footballing terms, includes those from Australia.
Plenty of Aussies have played in Saudi Arabia, and Matthew Jurman, who was given his Socceroos debut by Ange Postecoglou, is one of them. Now 34, he signed for Al-Ittihad – as of last year one of four PIF-funded clubs in the Pro League – shortly after the 2018 World Cup.
These days, Benzema, Fabinho and N’Golo Kante fill the non-homegrown gaps in Al-Ittihad’s squad, but in 2018-19 their most recognisable names were Carlos Villanueva, Karim El Ahmadi and Manuel da Costa, a trio that had fleeting, unmemorable Premier League careers with Blackburn Rovers, Aston Villa and West Ham respectively.
“I was at the World Cup and my agent called me and asked me if I would be interested in going to Saudi Arabia,” Jurman, who now plays for Sydney-based Macarthur FC, tells i over Zoom.
“We spoke about it and I did a bit of research, spoke to a few guys including one guy from the Socceroos who was already there and it sort of went from there.”
Was the money good? “I’d say it’s probably the best contract I’ve had in my life.”
Henderson and his family lived in neighbouring country Bahrain’s capital Manama, a 75-minute drive across the border to Dammam where Al-Ettifaq train.
Bahrain’s reputation as one of the more liberal countries in the Middle East – according to the Home Office alcohol is legal and Bahraini law doesn’t criminalise same-sex relationships – means that it is a popular move for some recruits. But Jurman decided to go all in on the Saudi experience.
“I lived in Jeddah [Saudi Arabia’s second biggest city] the whole time. It wasn’t too bad, I actually enjoyed it. It was all quite interesting, seeing a different culture and a different way of life.”
A westernised perception of Saudi Arabia is that there is little for people to do there in their spare time. Jurman’s answer to what he did away from matches and training may not do much to change those expectations.
“I enjoyed the food. They had all different types of restaurants. I went out with some of the other foreigners and a few times with the local boys too for dinners and stuff.
“They’ve got a really nice shopping mall so you could always go there. There was a beach you could go to which I think was just for foreigners where you had to leave your passport at the gate. That was actually very nice, I spent some time there. For me, I actually just enjoyed having the [English] Premier League on at a decent time!”
The vast cultural differences between Saudi Arabia and the Western world extend to football too.
“The heat was very different to anywhere else I’ve lived or played in, that was quite tough at the start,” Jurman says. “It was a different lifestyle because obviously you train at night only and during Ramadan you’re starting at 10 o’clock at night. During training you’d hear the prayers go off and everyone just stops. I’d never seen that before.”
It has been reported that another factor behind Henderson’s desire to return to Europe was to play a higher standard of football ahead of the European Championship this summer.
“It’s not [as bad] as people think it is,” Jurman insists. “If you’re comparing it to the Premier League there’s obviously going to be a bit of a difference. But you’ve got good South American players who come in who are being offered good money and maybe miss the scouting of European clubs and they make a career in these sorts of countries.
“One guy who came when I signed, Romarinho is still there [at Al-Ittihad] and still scoring goals today and I think he would have done well in many different leagues.”
As the first English player to move to Saudi Arabia and a vocal advocate for LGBT+ rights during his time at Liverpool, Henderson was heavily scrutinised for his decision to move to a country that criminalises same-sex relationships.
Interestingly, though, Jurman claims that most criticism in Australia over his decision to join Al-Ittihad revolved around the perceived quality of the league, rather than Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
“I understand the scrutiny for places sometimes but I guess for players you try to make it as simple [as you can],” he says. “Most players are thinking [about it] financially because they can’t play forever.”
More so than the culture, climate and football, the aspect of his Saudi experience that Jurman most struggled with was expectations and patience within his club.
Al-Ittihad have underperformed based on pre-season expectations this term – they are currently seventh in the table, 25 points behind leaders Al Hilal – but they endured an even more difficult campaign when Jurman was there, finishing 10th and churning through four managers, including the former West Ham and West Brom boss Slaven Bilic.
The defender went from being paraded on the pitch with other foreign signings during a glitzy opening ceremony to kick off the season to being left out of Al-Ittihad’s domestic squad altogether with other recruits selected instead.
A similar fate befell Portuguese winger Jota in September when Al-Ittihad decided against registering him in their Pro League squad just two months after buying him for a club-record £25m from Celtic.
“Sometimes these decisions happen and anywhere else in the world they wouldn’t make that investment if they weren’t going to keep the player there for at least a couple of years or whatever,” Jurman says.
“There was more stress than usual. I knew that losing games wasn’t going to be a good thing for me personally.”
Jurman spent just 14 months in Saudi Arabia before returning to New South Wales to sign for Western Sydney Wanderers. The Pro League boom was still yet to take place, but Al-Ittihad were busy upgrading their facilities, presumably in preparation for what was to come.
“Being there you could tell that football is massive there and they’ve got big plans,” he recalls. “You could tell that they wanted to bring the World Cup to the country in the near future.”
Whether Henderson’s swift departure from the Saudi experience dissuades others from being tempted by the riches on offer remains to be seen. It could make others think twice or make minimal impact whatsoever, depending on if others like Benzema or Laporte start to agitate for moves away too.
But evidently, Henderson’s failure to adapt and acclimatise is not true of every player that moves to the country.
“It’s like anything, you’ll find negatives and positives to career paths that you’ve chosen,” Jurman states. “For me I don’t regret going there at all, it was a good experience. I wish I could have stayed there longer.”
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