Given the fact he has carried Manchester United on his weary shoulders since the minute he walked through the door, Bruno Fernandes can be forgiven for being tempted by the riches on offer in Saudi Arabia.
Despite what you may say publicly, you would, too. These are astronomical, life-changing sums of money you only ever see written down on balance sheets of major companies.
For Fernandes, the mental wrestling was very real. Al-Hilal were prepared to make him a Middle Eastern king.
Yet, despite what the naysayers will tell you, Manchester United still retains a hold over you, once you are really locked in. English football’s most successful side has fallen on the hardest of times, but those immersed in its folklore, its grandeur, never give up hope of achieving all the game has to offer at a decaying Old Trafford.
Even the skipper of the sunken ship.
“I had conversations with Al-Hilal,” an impassioned Fernandes tells The i Paper as he sits down for an interview to mark his 300th United appearance, which will come against Brighton on Saturday. “There were also other clubs, but my answer wouldn’t change.
Ronaldo spoke to Fernandes over the prospect of a Saudi move (Photo: Getty)“From Europe, I had some people talking to me, but we never got into the place where there was an offer on the table. The concrete one was from Saudi.
“I spoke with the manager (Ruben Amorim) and he said I was still part of the project. The club said the same. And I always said that if the club was like ‘Bruno, we want to cash in, you are 30 years old’ I would be like ‘Okay, I have to do whatever is best for me and my family. And I will leave.’
“But obviously that wasn’t the case. I felt that I was still part of the plan, that I could still help the club achieve whatever were our aims. And that’s what made me stay.”
Advice was sought for a decision of this magnitude. Fernandes is a deeper thinker than most, one who approaches being a leader to the nth degree, whether personally offering to pay for staff’s families to travel to the FA Cup final or being there to guide academy graduates.
Not everyone liked the decision Fernandes came to.
“I spoke with Cristiano (Ronaldo),” he continues. “I wouldn’t say what he told me, but we spoke about it. Obviously, he now has a manager that also spoke with me at the time (Jorge Jesus, Sporting boss 2015-18).
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“He was at Al-Hilal three years ago, the first thing he said to me was, ‘Are you too expensive for the club?’ I said, ‘There are no expensive players for that club!’
“I told him the same, I wasn’t eager to go to Saudi because I wanted to stay. Cristiano had his opinion on what I should do. It was important for me, with all the experience he has, to hear what he thought. But obviously the decision will always be down to me and the club.
“I had a conversation with Omar (Berrada, CEO) and I told him, ‘Look, this is what’s on the table. I just want to know from your perspective’. Jason (Wilcox, director of football) said, like Omar, ‘we won’t say no but obviously we want you to stay. But if you want to go, we won’t say that it’s not a good offer for us, because it’s massive money.
“The club’s last biggest sale was probably £25m for Daniel James, I’m not sure. Maybe Scott (McTominay) went above that. But to go from that to the big amount that Al-Hilal were offering… they could offer £80-100m.
“The manager said to me, ‘We don’t want you to go, because then if we bring some people and then we lose you, we’re still going to lose something’.”
Staying put is a gamble, one Fernandes is well aware of. There are only green shoots of recovery starting to appear in recent weeks after a desperately disappointing first 11 months of Amorim’s reign.
No player has created more in the #PL this season @B_Fernandes8 pic.twitter.com/OZ8RUSIm7P
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) October 22, 2025If things go pear-shaped again, it wouldn’t be the first time Fernandes has had to endure false hope. During each of the previous regimes since his arrival in 2020, there have been multiple highs, a myriad of occasions supporters thought United were on their way back to the summit of English football.
Huge names came in alongside him. And yet, five-and-a-half years later, Fernandes is further from achieving his ultimate career goal – a Premier League or Champions League title – than when he arrived on our shores.
That hasn’t stopped him believing.
“I will always say my first game is my highlight, because without that one I wouldn’t be able to achieve all the other ones,” Fernandes explains with a huge grin on his face.
“We always say we have an offer from Saudi because obviously wherever I have to go, my family have to come. Obviously the first thing my wife said was ‘have you achieved everything you wanted to achieve at the club?’
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“Because she knows that I haven’t. And when I talk about I haven’t fulfilled my dreams, it comes from what she said to me. I’m not sure, she’s not sure I’m going to make it. But if I don’t try it, for sure I won’t make it.”
As the majority of the others around him continue to flatter to deceive, Fernandes’ numbers remain one of the few constants around the place.
No player has created more chances in the Premier League this season – not a new phenomenon for the skipper. Those individual numbers matter little should Fernandes leave Old Trafford, whether in the summer or beyond that, without garnering the top prizes.
Something that is not lost on the weary captain as he trudges back into another pivotal battle on Saturday, with a point to prove – the same feeling he’s been burdened with in each of the 299 that came before.
“I’ve seen a lot of people talking that I had an agreement to go to Saudi next season,” Fernandes adds. “If the club has done that agreement, it wasn’t made with me. My agent knows how I work, so if anyone wants to talk to me, it will be after the World Cup. Until then, I won’t speak to anyone.
“I want to fulfil my dreams here. Probably people will say ‘Bruno’s doing very well’ but that’s not what I want. Obviously I want people to say good things about me, but I want the team achievements, because that will be massive for me.
“That’s what’s missing in my time at United, that we do something as a club, something bigger. My individual performance will put me in some place, but not in the place that I want to be because I want to win trophies, I want to be recognised by the many good things I did for the club, but I’ve brought something back to the club, not just my individual numbers.”
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