Arab Gulf footballers must follow the path of their North African cousins if they want to be global superstars

The best of Arab footballers such as Leicester City's Riyad Mahrez and Roma's Mohammed Salah are making some noise around Europe’s top leagues. Make that Arab footballers from North Africa, because from the Middle East, and particularly from the Gulf, there is hardly a whisper.

Leicester City's Algerian midfielder Riyad Mahrez celebrates scoring his team's second goal during the English Premier League football match between Manchester City and Leicester City at the Etihad SShow more

The drop of the shoulder embarrassed poor Martin Demichelis, and the shot left Joe Hart wrong-footed. Riyad Mahrez’s goal against Manchester City on Saturday was the latest great moment from Leicester City’s Algerian international in a season peppered full of them.

Viewers around the Middle East following Mahrez’s heroics on television also could not have failed to see a new commercial featuring Roma’s Mohammed Salah that highlights the adulation he is currently enjoying in his home country of Egypt.

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And barely an eyebrow was raised a few weeks ago when Arsene Wenger, eyes firmly on the Premier League title with Arsenal, chose only to sign Salah’s countryman Mohammed Elneny from Basel in the winter transfer window.

The best of Arab footballers are making some noise around Europe’s top leagues.

Make that Arab footballers from North Africa, because from the Middle East, and particularly from the Gulf, there is hardly a whisper. There are well established sociocultural reasons why North African footballers, among African footballers in general, continue to thrive in European leagues.

A great number are from families that emigrated to Europe in search of a new life. Mahrez, just like arguably the greatest footballer of Arab origin, who also has Algerian ancestry, Zinedine Zidane, was born in France.

Karim Benzema and Hatem Ben Arfa, too. Sami Khedira, like Ben Arfa of Tunisian origin, was born in Germany, as was Karim Bellarabi of Bayer Leverkusen, who has a Moroccan father. All, unlike Mahrez, unsurprisingly chose to play for their adopted countries.

However, that tells only half the story. For those such as Mido and Mohammed Zidan in the recent past, and now Salah and Elneny, all born in and who represented Egypt, the move across the Mediterranean was made purely for sporting reasons. Ambition to make it in Europe seems to come naturally to African footballers.

In contrast, the horizons of Gulf-born footballers rarely extends beyond their home countries. Here, too, cultural and family reasons play a part. But so do lucrative contracts and home comforts.

That talented Emirati footballers Omar Abdulrahman and Ali Mabkhout, or Qatar’s Khalfan Ibrahim, continue to show loyalty to the clubs that nurtured them is commendable. Yet there is an unavoidable sense of opportunities being continually missed. Those three, and Ismail Matar and Nasser Al Shamrani before them, have the talent but for various reasons have not tried their luck abroad.

Did Abdulrahman watch Mahrez’s goal and think “I can do that”? And where is the Gulf’s answer to Mahrez or Salah anyway? There is still time for Abdulrahman, of course.

Or perhaps it could be the gifted Iraqi Humam Tariq, officially of Al Ahli in Dubai but currently on loan at Al Quwa Al Jawiya in his home country.

The 20-year-old midfielder shone at the recent AFC U23 Championships in Qatar, in which Iraq finished third. This summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro could do for him what the London Games in 2012 did for Abdulrahman.

Whether he, unlike so many before him, chooses to try his luck on a global stage is up to him.

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