Global Courant
Cristiano Ronaldo stands ahead of the Week 28 Saudi Pro League football match between Al-Nassr and Al-Shabab at Alawwal Park Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May 23, 2023.
Mohammed Sad | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Saudi Arabia is attracting some of the most high-profile players in the world this summer – but why is this happening and is this purchasing power a threat to major European clubs?
In 2023 alone, Cristiano Ronaldo moved to the Middle East country on a free transfer, with Ballon D’Or winner Karim Benzema turning down another season at Real Madrid to join him in the country.
That’s far from the end, with as many as four Chelsea players set to leave the Premier League for the Saudi Pro League, with Sergio Ramos, Bernardo Silva and Heung-Min Son reportedly getting similar offers.
Kaveh Solhekol, chief reporter of Sky Sports News, analyzes this trend in the transfer market…
Why is Saudi Arabia suddenly spending huge amounts of money on foreign players?
Saudi Arabia is trying to expand its economy through other industries to help ensure its financial future.
The country depends on selling money through oil – that won’t last forever and they need to diversify their economy. They do this through the PIF – the country’s sovereign wealth fund.
Sport is one particular area they want to grow in the country and so is their football league. They want to build their own leisure and entertainment industry and take advantage of the huge interest in football among the Saudi Arabian population – 70% of whom are under the age of 40.
Football is hugely popular in Saudi Arabia – they were the best supported team at the Qatar World Cup last year, let’s not forget their team beat eventual champions Argentina in the group stage – and they also see it as a way to boost tourism to enlarge the country.
The rulers of Saudi Arabia have seen all this interest and they have thought, “instead of other people making money from our people’s interest in sports, let’s make it ourselves and keep the money within our borders.” It wants to put Saudi Arabia on the map and profile it.
What else does Saudi Arabia hope to achieve?
Amnesty International Amnesty has accused Saudi Arabia of embarking on a program of “sportwashing” to cover up its extremely poor human rights record.
Human Rights Watch says, “Saudi Arabia spends billions of dollars hosting major entertainment, cultural and sporting events to deviate from the country’s poor human rights record.”
In its 2022 World Report, Human Rights Watch concluded that some reforms had been announced in Saudi Arabia “but continued repression and disregard for basic rights are major obstacles to progress”.
A United Nations inquiry into the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi said his death “constituted an extrajudicial execution for which the State of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible”.
Investing in football can not only be used for sportswashing, but can also buy influence and prestige around the world and exude soft power.
Saudi Arabia is expected to join Greece and Egypt in a bid to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup.
Is it a ‘flash in the pan’ – or a long-term goal?
Parallels are clearly drawn with China and the birth of Super League in 2004, when Brazilian star Oscar and West Ham’s Marko Arnautovic suddenly moved to the Far East.
What happened in China was that their Super League was a direct order from the president. He said he wanted China to host the World Cup, have a good national team and a national league.
But then the ruling Communist Party in China changed their minds, they didn’t like how this large amount of money flowed from China into Europe and the pockets of foreigners. They decided to put an end to this and many different rules were introduced to determine how many foreign players you could have in the Chinese Super League.
As then, Saudi Arabia is focused on the long term. But Saudi Arabia has more money. And there is a sense that they are more serious about it.
So this is the start of a process and not something that will soon disappear. Sky Sports News has been told Saudi Arabia wants 100 of the best foreign players to play in its league within five years.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the first to go there and they tried to get Lionel Messi with a monumental $400 million a year offer which he turned down to move to the MLS instead. But that hasn’t deterred Saudi Arabian clubs, with Ruben Neves poised to join Al Hilal and four Chelsea players, including Kalidou Koulibaly and Hakim Ziyech, in talks to move to state as well.
So will the Saudi Arabian clubs target Erling Haaland? Or Harry Kane? No player is excluded in terms of trying to bring them to the Arabian Peninsula
Mohammed Hamdi, an expert on football in the Middle East and former director of Al Jazira FC in Abu Dhabi, told Sky Sports News he believes the country will have no problem attracting top talent.
“They have the infrastructure,” he said. “They have the country. They can organize a World Cup. We already saw that it was a great event in Qatar.
“This is a long-term vision that will allow you to attract TV contracts, media, sponsorships and more visitors to the country.
“It’s not just players with a certain player or actually finishing their career. You see young players ready to take the step to the Saudi league.”
Has Saudi Arabia disrupted the transfer market forever?
We saw for the first time this summer that you have to name the Saudi clubs in every transfer. Players you think are not for sale, like Heung-Min Son at Tottenham, there is serious interest in that. Spurs have said Son is not for sale.
Saudi Arabia has the money to sign any player they want – as long as the player wants to move there.
Many players at the height of their careers will say no, but I think that has changed a bit with Wolves’ Neves. He is someone Liverpool, Barcelona and Manchester United are interested in. He is only 26 years old and at the height of his career, he has decided to leave. Obviously, a lot of that has to do with money.
So it has changed the transfer market, as clubs have serious competition from Saudi Arabia – a very lucrative market has opened up.
Is Chelsea using Saudi Arabia to get around their Financial Fair Play issues after spending £600m?
This is something that has been discussed a lot in recent days. Chelsea have spent £600 million over the past few transfer windows and they need to balance the books and sell some players. Suddenly the Saudis came out of nowhere and said, “We’re going to have some of your players and we’ve got £100 million to give you.” People on the outside look at it and think it’s a little odd – suddenly Chelsea has this way of balancing the books.
People have also said that Saudi Arabia’s PIF – which owns the four Saudi clubs the Chelsea players want to buy – has made an investment in Clearlake Capital, a private equity fund that is a majority shareholder in Chelsea. People have been trying to see if there’s anything strange going on there.
But from what Sky Sports News has been told, this has nothing to do with it. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund invests in numerous private equity funds around the world, and Clearlake has investments in 400 different companies. Chelsea would say there is absolutely no conflict of interest.
