Henderson clarifies if he earns £700k a week while claiming he didn't leave for money

Various media outlets had reported that Henderson's salary in Arabia would reach that figure

05/09/2023, 03:32 PM +00:00

This summer we lost an Anfield legend as Jordan Henderson, the captain who led us to every trophy possible during the club's most recent golden era, was seduced by Al-Ettifaq and decided to leave Liverpool to play under his former teammate and mentor, living legend Steven Gerrard.

Much has been said about the reasons why Jordan Henderson agreed to move to Saudi Arabia and one of those reasons many of us thought was that perhaps the financial offer was simply impossible to refuse. In that sense, when Al-Ettifaq's interest in Henderson was being talked about, it was said that the Saudi club was willing to make him the fifth highest paid player in the world behind only Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar.

The figure that was all over the media was £700k a week, which would put him as the highest paid English player in the world. Given this information, many fans had no doubt that Henderson was leaving Anfield for money, although not exactly as a claim, as the 33-year-old midfielder undoubtedly gave us the best years of his career at Liverpool.

However, in an interview given by Jordan Henderson to The Athletic, the former Liverpool captain assured that the amount that was so much talked about is false. "No. I wish it was (laughs). No, honestly, the numbers just aren't true. But again, it had to work out for us financially as well. I'm not saying that it didn't and I'm not saying, "Oh, I'm not on good money" because it's good money and it was a good deal but it wasn't the numbers that were reported. No," he said.

So what was the reason for going to Arabia?

Jordan Henderson said in that interview that money was not the reason he decided to leave Liverpool for Saudi Arabia, but that it had to do with wanting to continue playing for England. "I want to play. I don't want to be sitting on the bench and coming on for 10 minutes in games. And I knew that would have an effect on my chances of playing for England," he said.