No Emirati soccer player ever has played in Europe. Not one guy, unless you count Hamdan Al Kamali’s half-season with Lyon’s reserve squad, and no one does.

This lack of an Emirati presence in Europe is a topic that comes up often. Fans here are keenly aware that Ali Al Habsi, from neighboring Oman, is the No. 1 goalkeeper for Wigan Athletic in the Premier League.

Numerous former coaches of the UAE national team have suggested the best players here need to play in Europe. Not in England or Spain or Germany or Italy, but in a competitive league with quality players. Belgium. Holland. Denmark or Sweden. Greece.

The idea is that competition in a European league will be significantly tougher, and so, too, would be practice sessions. Places in the lineup would have to be earned, and not just awarded, as they are here for the best 60 or 70 UAE players, pretty much regardless of form.

We have generated various explanations for this lack of local players playing outside the country. Today, the coach of the English Premier League club Reading came up with a new wrinkle.

Players in the Gulf cost too much to recruit and sign.

Within the past year, a league official told me that an “ordinary” Emirati player is paid 1 million dirhams per season — which is $272,000. Or far more than players in Major League Soccer earn. And some of the ordinary UAE pros also hold second jobs or go to school.

Better UAE players — those who would be able to have a chance of success in a European league — presumably are paid much more.

Brian McDermott, the Reading coach, has heard the rumors. He told The National’s Gary Meenaghan: “As I understand it, the money out here is phenomenal,” McDermott said. “If you have a player being paid tax-free, then you are going to have pay a lot of money to get them.”

The coach also suggested, without naming him, that Omar Abdulrahman, the Al Ain midfielder currently considered the best player in the country, could have joined Manchester City (which is owned by Sheikh Mansour, brother of the UAE president) — but chose not to.

If his “too expense” suggestion is accurate, and it may be, it would complete a scenario that makes it nearly impossible for a player from here to go to Europe.

Other issues raised include the reluctance of local clubs to give up their best local players … the potential culture shock any Gulf native would face going to predominately non-Muslim, non-Arab Europe … the importance of family in local culture, and the reluctance to put any distance between yourself and your loved ones.

And then there is the most basic: Players here perhaps just aren’t good enough, perhaps because they are not sufficiently pushed and tested when they are young.

If we factor in that Emirati players are too expensive to sign, that’s pretty much the grand slam of reasons why it has never happened, and why it seems unlikely to any time soon.