Lots of weirdnesses in UAE soccer. A handful of foreigners are counted on to score most of the goals. Players are paid well despite tiny crowds. No one in the UAE pays much attention to the league except for Emiratis, yet every game is nationally televised. No admission is charged to see games, you can’t buy concessions at stadiums and no clubs do any real merchandizing. Some clubs apparently pay supporters to attend games and the clubs certainly provide transportation for their Emirati fans to away games.

But maybe the weirdest thing of all is this: No Emirati plays outside the country. None.

And none ever has. Not a real contract with a real team. Never.

This may be about to change, and how this story plays out may be quite telling about where we are in the history of UAE soccer.

Hamdan al Kamali, 22, is a good-looking central defender for Al Wahda, one of the biggest clubs in the UAE. Decent size (about 6-1, 170), runs fairly well, good in the air and useful on corners.

Plus, he has a certain presence. Charisma, I suppose it is. Something about the way he carries himself says “leader” and coaches who have had him on their sides tend to want to give him the captain’s armband.

He currently is captain of the UAE Olympic team. He could be captain of Wahda any second now. And he already is a regular in the national team and clearly a very influential player. If the UAE didn’t tend to give the captain’s armband to the oldest guy on the field (as opposed to the best/most influential), he might be captain of the national team already, too. He probably already is captain without portfolio.

So, a pretty nice package. Athleticism, technical skill, leadership qualities.

And this is key: Hamdan al Kamali told my colleage Amith Passela during an interview last season that he wants to play in Europe. Really wants to play in Europe. This in itself is a more than a little unusual.

A handful of guys have gone to practice with sides outside the country. Ismail Matar, the It Boy of five years ago. got as far as a brief loan to a Qatar club. But that’s about it.  And part of this is because Emiratis apparently have historically been disinclined to leave.

This seems to be the rule of thumb for the whole of the Arabian Peninsula. I think exactly one guy from the entire region plays outside the country: Ali al Habsi, the goalkeeper from Oman who is now with Wigan in the Premier League. And not because no one in Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE can play.

The current UAE national coach, a Slovenian guy named Srecko Katanec, believes that most players from this area simply do not want to leave home. He talks about how they don’t want to leave their families, in particular … and he meant their whole, extended families.

Also factors? In my opinion, both culture and religion. Just because this is a peninsula floating on oil, with piles of money being funneled to most citizens, it doesn’t mean it is particularly worldly or travels well. Especially to Europe, where mosques are hard to find and devout Muslims may feel unwelcome and out of place — but where most of the great soccer clubs play.

Factor in that top Emiratis have always been well-paid by the clubs here … and that the clubs want to keep those players around because the teams with the best Emiratis tend to win championships. Well, that’s how you can be playing football in a country for four decades, have made the 1990 World Cup … and have no one playing outside the country.

Hamdan al Kamali may change all that. Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon, in common usage) has noticed him, and is interested in having him join the side, which is headed for Champions League play and has won seven French championships in the past decade.

Hamdan al Kamali is keen to go. This could happen, and the UAE soccer community is watching closely.

This is where it stands. The new Lyon coach, Remi Garde, met with al Kamali in Austria while the national team was training there. He said nice things about him, some of which I had in the story I did this week for The National.

Lyon made some sort of offer to Al Wahda for him. As you see, if you followed the link to my story, Wahda appears to be almost insulted. The deputy CEO says the offer was “not serious” … meaning something like, “Show us the money.” The sense I get is that Lyon thinks they ought to able to add this guy nearly for free.

Wahda now apparently is waiting to see if Lyon will make a real offer. The official I spoke to insisted the club would not block a move, the way clubs here historically have done. He said it would be good for the player and (this is key) good for the national team to have one of its key players hone his game in the more competitive environs of Ligue 1.

Also interesting? Several of the other younger guys on the national team said they 1) believe al Kamali would succeed there and 2) hope that he is allowed to go.

This also represents a breakthrough. Several of the younger guys have made it clear they want to play outside the UAE. This is new. The most prominent of them is Amer Abdulrahman, a stubby little midfielder with great vision and technical skills. One of those guys who could be in a phone booth with two defenders and still hold the ball.

(Dated reference, yes. Phone booth. You kids ask your grandparents to describe it.)

The guy who scored the infamous backheel penalty? Theyab Awana? He has the talent to play outside the country. So do a few others.

So, now we wait. Is Lyon interested enough to make an offer to Wahda that isn’t insulting? If not, would Wahda let him go anyway, just to break the ice on this “Emirati playing in Europe” thing?

We’re watching. The whole UAE football establishment is, too.