It was fairly big news: A veteran of the Premier League would be joining the Al Ain club here in the UAE Pro League. I’m not sure we have any of those in the country, at the moment — Premier League veterans. Guys from some other big leagues, like Seria A (Fabio Cannavaro) and La Liga (Francisco Yeste). But Premier League? Not off the top of my head, because most of the foreigners here come from Africa and South America.

The guy’s name is Jeremie Aliadiere, and a decade ago he looked like The Next Big Thing in French soccer. He came out of the famed Clairefontaine academy, was signed by Arsenal when he was 16, but he never quite made it with the Gunners.

And then, on Sunday, Al Ain posted a story on its website saying that Aliadiere had signed with the club. Which all unraveled today.

Not being someone who follows the Al Ain site as frequently as I should, I found out about Aliadiere the next day, when I went out to Al Ain to see a Pro League match between the city’s big club and Al Nasr of Dubai. Nasr won, 2-1, and at halftime I asked one of Al Ain’s publicity guys about this Chilean midfielder they allegedly had signed during the transfer period last month, who not only hadn’t played for Al Ain but wasn’t on the list of 18 eligible players. The PR guy said, “He went back.” That’s it. Didn’t mention that “oh, but we have a new guy coming!” No. Not how things work here, generally. I didn’t actually ask, did I? No, I didn’t.

Anyway. After the match, one of the Arabic-language reporters (and every reporter at the match worked for Arabic-language papers, aside from me) asked the Brazilian coach of Al Ain “when are you going to start using the French guy” … which I picked up on as it was translated into English … so that the aide to the coach, Alexandre Gallo, could translate it again, into Portuguese.

The answer was, basically: “I don’t know.” But now I’m thinking, “I have to find out who this new foreigner is.” Because foreigners here are a huge deal. Only three per team, but they score more than half the goals in the league. So every foreigner signing is huge.

What followed was a comic (I must concede) moment as I tried to ascertain from the Arabic-language guys who this “French guy” might be. And, yes, it can only be described as amusing to hear Arabic guys trying to pronounce a French name to an English speaker who also would have trouble pronouncing the guy’s French name.

So, one of the Al Ain employees was trying to tell me to “go look at the website!” when one of the reporters — and these guys are really quite friendly and helpful; I mean, think about it: some old “English” guy you don’t really know (all non-Westerners here assume all English speakers are Brits) starts asking you complicated questions in English during a match (Hey, has Al Ain ever been relegated?), and distracting you, and you don’t just glare at him, you try to help.

So. As the employee is trying to tell me “go look at our website” one of the reporters comes back into the interview room with his cell phone and sticks it in front of me and on the screen is a name, in Latin characters. “Jeremie Aliadiere.” A name I copy down but which means nothing to me — because I didn’t really start following the Premier League until about eight months ago, when it became part of my job.

Anyway, on the cab ride back from Al Ain (yes, I cabbed it, because I didn’t get a car rented in time to take advantage of my new license), I called Leah and had her do a google search on this mystery man, and his name came up after about three characters of his last name. Because he had been in the Premier League and had lots of internet history and, yes, his own wiki page.

And he has played for Arsenal, West Ham, Wolverhampton and Middlesbrough, before (and after) it was relegated.

So now I know, “Oh, a former Premier League guy; better get that high in my game story.” And then the next day, one of the English guys on the desk at The National tells me it’s too bad we didn’t break it out as a separate story because the guy is semi-well known in England and also because our website gets lots of hits for Premier League stories.

Anyway, today, I’m doing a follow on the story, expanding it. Because our two-page weekly Pro League package is shy a 300-word story of being complete, and even if we’re late it’s probably a good idea to expand on this French guy who was in the Premier League for much of the past decade.

So, while looking for more info on the signing — perhaps Al Ain had a press conference, and I missed it? — I came across a batch of stories quoting Aliadiere as saying he not only hadn’t signed with Al Ain, he felt as if he was treated badly there and that Al Ain had been unprofessional in its handling of the matter.

(And note how British papers can’t be bothered to figure out that Al Ain is not Dubal. It’s like saying San Diego is Los Angeles. They’re 100 miles apart. Feel free to do some fact-checking, professional English daily. But, then, much of Europe thinks Dubai is the UAE, and not just one city in it. As opposed to the U.S., which doesn’t know Dubai, either.)

Pretty sharp stuff from the former prodigy. Which makes for a story but also demands that I try hard to find someone at Al Ain who will be able to respond to the player’s comments, if he so chooses. Basic journalism, at least as practiced in North America.

Trouble was, it was pushing 5, and the club’s officials were scattered because tomorrow, Thursday, is a national holiday — the observation of the Prophet’s birthday — and the start of a three-day weekend.  Plus, the Al Ain club is flying to Indonesia tomorrow for a Asian Champions League qualifier against a club in Sumatra, Sriwijaya, and at that moment (6 p.m.) was out on the practice field.

So, finally, at about 9, a helpful person in the Al Ain communications and marketing department got me the number for one of the assistant managers of the team, and he is quoted in the story I did for The National.

Basically, what Sultan Rashid said, in English, was that Al Ain was interested in Aliadiere, yes, but that he hadn’t passed his medical examination. And if you study the player’s wiki site, he does seem to have to have missed most of two seasons with unspecified injuries.

So, anyway, it was a lot of work,  a lot of web-surfing, a lot of calls over and again to Al Ain, and a late connection with someone who could talk, and a revise of the original story, and sending it back through. At 300 words.

This Premier League player isn’t coming. He says he turned down the club. The club says it turned him down. Al Ain’s website has a story saying they have signed him, with that photo of him looking like maybe has has (smiling, and wearing a purple-and-white club scarf, for example). But that was before the MRI that he failed, according to a guy who knows about the players, and says Al Ain never formerly offered him a contract and he can’t really speak for what the website might have put up … and the player is popping off perhaps because he knows/fears that word will get around that Al Ain walked away from him because of his injury history, which probably is why he’s out of soccer at the moment at the age of 27.

And … another day in the life of an occasional UAE soccer writer.