Tijani Reijnders left Manchester City this summer for Al-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia, for €61 million, after spells at AC Milan and AZ Alkmaar. Asked by NOS during the Netherlands squad’s get-together, he explained his choice without dressing it up: “Me, a player who only thinks about money? I can’t deny it.”
Louise opened her notebook to the transfer-window tab and found nothing that matched.
“Usually people tell me ‘new challenge’, ‘sporting project’, ‘personal ambition’. Here I’ve got a player just telling me it’s the money. I checked my transfer-window glossary, the word isn’t in there. Silly question, but why does everyone else make it so complicated?”
Reijnders also said that Brendan Rodgers, the former Liverpool manager now at Al-Qadsiah, had a hand in his decision. “He told me I could play here very happily for three or four years, then go back to Europe. There are enough examples of that today. That’s my aim too,” he told NOS. The player added that he’d initially thought this kind of move ended a top-level career, before changing his mind.
He said he no longer wanted to work after his career, to secure, in his words, the future of the generations after him. He also waved off criticism in one line: “You can always play the moraliser, but I think everyone would have said yes to this.”
Louise noted in the margin that at Al-Qadsiah, Reijnders would have a new teammate: the Belgian goalkeeper Koen Casteels. Next to it she wrote: “A Dutchman and a Belgian in the same Saudi dressing room. That must make for some interesting arguments about whose national team is better.”
“I checked, and actually nobody had ever answered the question ‘why are you leaving’ so clearly before. Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.”
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
