TV show Le Iene carried out an interesting experiment with Italian footballers, producing a fake offer from Saudi Arabia which proved interesting to 88% of those asked.
The Saudi government has started to cause shockwaves in European football in recent years, increasingly expanding into the market following the purchase of Newcastle United and Al-Nassr’s signing of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Last summer, a long list of players across Europe were linked with rich moves to Saudi Arabia and a number made the jump, including Neymar, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Riyad Mahrez and Jordan Henderson, the latter of whom gave up on the league after just six months.
Serie A experiment
Italian comedy and satire show La Iene via Calciomercato.com decided to launch an experiment into Italian football and Serie A, contacting 50 players in Serie A or Italians abroad to offer them an apparent €30m net per season contract in Saudi Arabia.
88% of the participants were interested in the idea, leaving just 12% to decline the idea. Among the refusals from, Serie A include Juventus’ Mattia Perin, Toronto’s Federico Bernardeschi, Roma’s Lorenzo Pellegrini, Lazio’s Mattia Zaccagni and Napoli’s Giovanni Simeone.
Predictably, not many of the 88% of those who accepted consented to sharing their response, with just four giving the green light for publication. The four were: Arsenal’s Jorginho, Adana Demirspor’s Mario Balotelli, Fiorentina’s Giacomo Bonaventura and Inter’s Stefano Sensi.
The responses of the four are as follows:
Jorginho – “If you have a concrete offer from someone, I’m always open to hearing what’s there. Requests or interests. Then if something concrete comes to me, I’m always open to it without any problems. Salary worth €30m a year? Yes, you can contact my agent.”
Balotelli – “I could also go there, yes, it obviously depends on how much they offer. We need to sit down, meet and do things a little more formally to understand things. Salary worth €30m a year? That’s fine.”
Bonaventura – “My contract expires in a year, maybe I’ll change team and go to Saudi Arabia.”
Sensi – “Yes, I’ll talk about it with my agent, and I’ll call you back. […] It’s clear that when you find yourself faced with those choices, at the end of the day, for those who go there, you see that the money matters a lot.”
There are teams sitting in mid table in the premier league with players on their books earning triple or quadruple the average serie a salary. Who would blame them? Like Alex Tixiera going off to china when nearing his peak. Life changing money for him and his family for generations.
There is nothing surprising about this and nothing contentious. In any line of work – if people are offered a huge wage hike, 88% of people (at least) would show interest.
Who would blame them? Like Alex Tixiera going off to china when nearing his peak. Life changing money for him and his family for generations.
When he retires he can recount how he won the chinese league with ching-chong