Salisbury FC land in Kuwait to take on Al Qadsia in bold non-league adventure
Salisbury FC's players are used to modest occasions at The Mac Stadium, but after Saturday's 2-0 win against Folkestone Invicta they were sent off on the trip of a lifetime by a chant rarely heard from the Andrews Terrace songbook: "Kuwait away ole, ole".
Within 24 hours the National League South squad had touched down in the Middle East for a five-day visit that includes a friendly against Al Qadsia, one of Kuwait's most successful clubs with more than 50 trophies and a continental title from 2014, before flying home on Thursday to prepare for Saturday's FA Cup third qualifying round against Dulwich Hamlet.
"Straight away we all said, 'yeah, we're all in,'" says player Luke Russe. "It's a unique opportunity and as players, we are so thankful to everybody involved in making this trip happen. I've been involved in this level for a long time now and I've never had an experience like it."
The enthusiasm came as no accident. Owner Ali Alhamad, the Kuwaiti businessman who bought the club in 2025, says every member of the squad — apart from Jaiden Bartolo, who is on international duty — agreed to travel within an hour.
A club with a huge Gulf profile
Salisbury's Kuwaiti links run deep. Four of the club's sponsors are from the country, including the front-of-shirt partner behind Kuwait's first Sharia-compliant digital bank, while the training kit carries a popular Kuwaiti Acai brand. The club's official Arabic Instagram account has more than 14,000 followers — only slightly fewer than the English one.
When the squad arrived in Kuwait they were met by a small group of fans, with school children treating them like Premier League stars. "I would even go further than saying that Salisbury in Kuwait is bigger than many of the Premier League teams in the UK," says Alhamad. "So I am not exaggerating when I do say that it is a huge name in Kuwait."
More than a friendly
The trip is part of a wider strategy. All ticket sales and advertising revenue from the match go to Salisbury, and the club has already set up a summer camp in Kuwait, plus a trial session that saw the top three local players train with the first team in pre-season. The players will visit restaurants, schools and universities and host a Q&A session on how an English club operates.
"It will help the players themselves with opening up their horizons into different cultures, different countries, experiencing other footballing nations and other styles of football," says Alhamad.
"If you do what other people do, you'll just get the same results everyone else does," he adds. "Football in England, especially in the non-league, is a brutal business. So just throwing in money to the football club with the aim of getting promotion is fool's gold, in my opinion. The right way to do it is to build it properly all the way from the bottom and if you just limit yourself to one market, which is the city or town that you are in, that is pretty limited."
With the Gulf region "a huge untapped market that is thirsty for English football", Alhamad also hopes the match will educate Kuwaitis about non-league quality: "We'll show you what we have and you never know, maybe the sixth tier of English football will beat the top tier on the biggest team in Kuwait. That'll be some story."
For Russe, however, the focus remains on the experience: "We'd love to win the game. But at the same time I think it's more about the experience and about the club as a whole... We've got a very young group, so for them to experience that and kind of experience cultures and differences is great."
Back home, keeping the club rooted in Salisbury remains a priority — with the FA Cup tie against Dulwich Hamlet the first test on their return. "I have grown to love it and love the people of Salisbury and the towns around it," says Alhamad. "It's a great place to be."