10 former Championship ballers we can’t believe are now playing in Saudi Arabia
The Saudi Pro League continues making waves in the world of football, looking to add Premier League stars to the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Sadio Mane.
But scratch beneath the surface of the headline-making Ballon d’Or winning football royalty and you’ll find some unlikely familiar faces, particularly if you’re a seasoned watcher of the English Championship.
We’ve identified 10 players from the English second tier who are playing their football in Saudi Arabia these days.
Ahmed Hegazi
After flitting between the Premier League and Championship with West Brom, Hegazi moved to Al-Ittihad in 2020 and has spent the last five seasons playing his football in Saudi Arabia.
The veteran Egypt international was part of the side that won the Saudi Pro League under Nuno Espirito Santo in 2022-23 and spent time playing alongside the likes of Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante and Fabinho before he made the step down to second-tier Neom last summer.
READ: 6 players simply too good to be playing in the Saudi second division
Alfa Semedo
Benfica loaned the midfielder out to Nottingham Forest and Reading in successive seasons back in the day, but he never showed quite enough to earn a permanent move to England and went on to sign for Vitoria Guimaraes in 2021.
Semedo then spent two seasons with Saudi second-tier outfit Al-Tai before making the switch to join Hegazi at Neom.
Modou Barrow
Back in the mid-2010s, Barrow spent underwhelming Championship loans at Nottingham Forest, Leeds United and Blackburn Rovers away from parent club Swansea City (when they were a Premier League side) before eventually settling at Reading.
After leaving the Madejski in 2020, he’s since played in Korea, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Last summer he left Pro League outfit Al-Ahli for second-tier Abha.
Marek Rodak
Slovakia international Rodak joined Fulham as a teenager and developed his skills in their academy before gaining experience in a series of lower-league loans away (Farnborough, Welling United, Accrington Stanley and Rotherham United), eventually progressing to feature prominently for his parent club in their promotion-winning campaigns of 2019-20 and 2021-22.
But playing opportunities have been harder to come by in the Premier League and last summer he left Craven Cottage after over a decade on Fulham’s books.
He joined Al-Ettifaq, the club who have just parted ways with Steven Gerrard.
READ: 6 players who instantly regretted moving to Saudi Arabia: Neymar, Henderson…
Juninho Bacuna
You might remember the Curacao international midfielder from Huddersfield’s brief time in the Premier League.
Since then he’s spent two years in the second tier with the Terriers, a short-lived stint at Rangers and two and a half seasons at Birmingham City.
Bacuna left St. Andrews following the Blues’ relegation to League One last summer and moved to Al Wehda FC, where he shares a dressing room with Australia stalwart Craig Goodwin and one-time Manchester United man Odion Ighalo.
Ezgjan Alioski
Okay, technically speaking the former Leeds cult hero and all-round bedlamite is very much not now playing in Saudi Arabia.
But that’s not a listicle we’re planning on writing anytime soon, so we’re giving Alioski a mention here.
The 32-year-old’s Wikipedia page takes the unusual tack of stating he “plays for the North Macedonia national team” with no mention of any club.
An exclusively international footballer is some novelty, but that’s kind of what he is.
In his Wiki club career section, it states that Alioski left in 2024, which presumably makes him a free agent.
But we’ve done some digging and Transfermarkt – the gospel for all things contracts-related, so we’re taking their word for it – states that he’s still contracted to Al-Ahli until the end of this season.
From that, we can only glean he’s still picking up his wages while unregistered and unused for the current campaign. Fair enough, Gjanni.
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Jean Michael Seri
We’ve not included the likes of Ivan Toney, Ruben Neves and Aleksandar Mitrovic here.
Whilst they all did play in the Championship, they surely transcended the second-tier tag in the Premier League before making high-profile, big-money moves to the Saudi Pro League.
You could argue that Seri belongs in that category, given he was once hotly tipped to join Barcelona and signed for Fulham for a considerable fee when they were in the top flight.
But the Ivorian midfielder spent the last two full seasons in the Championship with Hull City before making an under-the-radar move to lesser-known, newly-promoted Al-Orobah. That’s good enough for us.
Wesley Hoedt
The Dutch defender has appeared in the top flights of England, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Belgium over the years, but we still get distinctly Championship vibes from his 18 midtable months at Watford.
Hoedt is still only 30 years of age and now has another club and league to add to his CV, turning out for an Al-Shabab side that are also home to Yannick Carrasco and Daniel Podence.
Eclectic dressing room, that one.
William Troost-Ekong
It was only a couple of years back that Troost-Ekong was deservedly named Player of the Tournament for his role in Nigeria’s run to the 2023 AFCON final, a brief window into an alternative reality in which he’d nailed down his place as a consistently top-level defender.
To be fair to Troost-Ekong, he has played in the Premier League, Serie A and the Eredivisie alongside top tier leagues in Belgium, Turkey, Norway, Italy and Greece before and after his stints in the Championship with Watford.
After helping lead PAOK to the Greek Super League title he joined Saudi Pro League side Al Kholood last summer.
Yoann Barbet
There was a seven-year period in which French defender Barbet was something of an ever-present in West London, making over a hundred Championship appearances for both Brentford and Queens Park Rangers between the years of 2015 and 2022.
After two years back in France with Bordeaux, he left after they were relegated to French fourth tier after bankruptcy – meaning he’s sadly missed out on the chance to play alongside Big Andy Carroll.
Nowadays he’s turning out for Al-Riyadh, who are coached by former Nottingham Forest and Cardiff City manager Sabri Lamouchi.