Fabio Cannavaro isn’t leaving us just yet.

As we decided a week ago, when the Dubai club Al Ahli filled its foreigner allotment, Cannavaro won’t be playing for Ahli. But rather than pay him off to go away, the club prefers to have him stick around for three years as a coach/adviser.

It makes sense, and here’s why.

The UAE is a star-struck country. Just about all cultures are, but it seems a little more intense here, and Fabio Cannavaro is still famous.

Even if he doesn’t play. And he won’t. He announced his retirement at a press conference today, and my colleague Neil Cameron wrote it for The National.

Cannavaro suffered a knee injury in March, and wasn’t quite right the rest of the season, missing six of the final eight league matches. Last month, he said he wanted to come back and play Year 2 of his contract.

Then two things happened.

1. Ahli decided to move on without him, on the field.

2. Fabio realized he had no other playing options. The market for guys who will be 38 (in two months) is not brisk, particularly when they’re nicked up and didn’t play particularly well in their most recent season.

So, if Cannavaro can shift into an advisory role, and Ahli is OK with that, maybe prorating his second-year salary (he apparently earned something like $6 million last season) over several years, or even pushing it up a little, well, everyone is happy.

Ahli has the 2006 Fifa World Player of the Year hanging around the club, smiling, looking pleasant, shaking hands, posing for photos … and Cannavaro has another three years on the Ahli payroll, with all that includes — maid, cook, driver, maybe a housing stipend, golf club membership, treated like royalty.

Lots of the people working in the UAE can relate to this. It’s a hard world out there for employees of a certain age (and 38 is ancient in soccer), and being able to ease the transition from well-paid player to occasionally paid analyst/adviser, and maybe even coaching … this will help a lot. He is going to be making serious money three years from now, and I’m sure he likes that idea.

Maybe Fabio will even be available to media in the coming season. He might have some interesting things to say.