Jordan Henderson leaves Saudi Pro League after disastrous six months
The Saudi Pro League made big moves last season, signing stars Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Sadio Mané and Karim Benzema for salaries reportedly exceeding $400K per week.
But despite its star power, the league has struggled for relevance in the crowded soccer calendar.
As the enormity of the work remaining for the Saudi project sets in, several of the league's biggest stars have expressed frustration with its infrastructure and attendance.
Six months after joining Al-Ettifaq in the Persian Gulf city of Dammam, English midfielder Jordan Henderson has left the league, He's finalizing terms of an 18-month contract with Dutch club Ajax instead.
Henderson, a former Liverpool captain, faced heavy criticism when he joined Al-Ettifaq last July. Henderson had built his brand on outspoken support for the LGBTQIA+ community, earning plaudits from fan groups across England and Europe.
His decision to move to Saudi Arabia — a country where same-sex activity is criminalized — was viewed as a rejection of LGBTQIA+ rights in favor of a paycheck. Henderson insisted that wasn't the case.
"I strongly believe that me playing in Saudi Arabia is a positive thing," Henderson told The Athletic in September. "I think there was always going to be criticism regardless of what I did ... so basically I had to make the decision on what was best for me and my family.
"Do I go somewhere to try something new, to grow the game I love in another country, and grow the league into one of the best in the world? That excited me because I want to grow the sport all over the world. And that got me going, really."
Saudi Arabia needed Henderson's passion for growth. The Saudi Pro League averaged just 8,331 fans per game last season, less than half of MLS' figures during the same time period. Henderson's team, Al-Ettifaq, played to crowds as small as 696, and other Saudi teams attracted fewer fans still. (A match between Al-Riyadh and Al-Akhdoud in September drew 133 fans.)
Just six months after launching into his league-growing project, though, Henderson has given up entirely. His contract with Al-Ettifaq was formally terminated on Wednesday, and his precedent-setting departure is prompting other Saudi stars to reconsider their options, too.
The French striker Benzema and Brazilian striker Roberto Firmino are also weighing early exits.
It's a sign that Saudi Arabia has much more work to do to build a compelling sports product — and that blindly signing global superstars isn't the best way to sustainably build a league. (Long-suffering MLS supporters know that better than just about anyone.)
For Henderson, the whole affair could not have gone worse. He lost his captaincy, his advocacy, his brand, his most vocal supporters, and, for many, his legitimacy as a starting midfielder by joining the Saudi Pro League.
It's a massive stack of losses for just six months of play in front of a few thousand people. And even if Henderson didn't move to Saudi Arabia exclusively for the paycheck, that paycheck appears to be the only positive thing he'll take away from this experiment.
No matter how many thousands of dollars Henderson received, it's hard to imagine it being enough to balance the scale.
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