Saudi Arabia’s raid on the European Top 5 leagues last season is well documented, and everybody is expecting June 2024 to see if the rich Middle Eastern country will continue its aggressive spending spree or if they will pull the breaks and be more subtle in their financial offers. But surely, many players braced for such a financially sweet offer, and the famous Italian TV show decided to test them. The results were devastating or expected, depending on how people are perceiving the situation. Out of 50 interviewed players, 88% would play for a certain Saudi Arabia’s club! I left Sevilla for Saudi Arabia due to mental health issues, Bounou revealsItalian comedy and satire show ‘La Iene’ made a phone call to 50 Italian footballers (playing home or abroad) and introduced themselves as employers from Saudi Arabia, offering them 30 million euros net per season contract to play there. Amont those who decided against the offer, basically refusing a huge amount of money in order to play there were Juventus’ Mattia Perin, Toronto’s Federico Bernardeschi, Roma’s Lorenzo Pellegrini, Lazio’s Mattia Zaccagni and Napoli’s Giovanni Simeone.Benzema denies he wants to quit Saudi ArabiaOut of those 88% per cent who decided to accept the offer before they were told that it was all a joke, only four players were brave enough to allow the TV show to publish their names. Those footballers are Arsenal’s Jorginho, Adana Demirspor’s Mario Balotelli, Fiorentina’s Giacomo Bonaventura and Inter’s Stefano Sensi. And some of them explained their decision. “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” said the Gunner’s midfielder, and he was quite honest. Mikel Arteta, take a note. ##NAJAVA_MECA_8072956##
