Melbourne Victory was initially hesitant to sell their star player, Mark Milligan, but Saudi club Al Ahli made an offer that they couldn’t refuse. The clubs reasons aside, Mark Milligan himself has spoken on why he made the move to Saudi Arabia.

According to the football news website Goal, apart from the money involved the main reason was the size of Al Ahli.

Speaking to The Asian Game podcast Milligan said: “I choose to take the move to Al Ahli obviously because of the size of the club.”

He adds “In negotiations, they were very keen on acquiring my services and I think when a club is pushing that hard you know you’re going to play a role in what they’re trying to achieve.” 

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Milligan was the captain of Australian football club Melbourne Victory who are widely considered to be the most successful club in the Australian football league. But in January the Australian club allowed the transfer of Milligan to Al Ahli considering the offer made by the Saudi club.

Goal reports that the sum paid by Al Ahli for Milligan is expected to be somewhere near one million dollars.

Soon after joining Al Ahli, Milligan made his debut in one of the most highly anticipated matches in the country which was against another Jeddah-based club Al Ittihad. 

The match ended in a draw and Milligan got firsthand experience on what football means to Saudis.

“The fans there are fanatical,” said Milligan. “I was fortunate enough to play my first game in the derby against Al Ittihad and there were 62,000 fans there…it was unbelievable.”