With one of the greatest football players of our generation, Cristian Ronaldo, making a record breaking transfer to the Saudi Pro League in December, a deal believed to be worth more than 200 million euros, Saudi Arabia’s expansion of football has now come to dominate this year’s summer transfer talk.
Football is the rarely contested biggest, most influential sport in the world. Thus, European football, containing the five most watched leagues in the world, have experienced this type of economic interest before. Specifically, China, who set up their own Super League in 2004. Their attempted expansion came from direct orders from the president, who wanted to massively improve their international team, domestic league and host the world cup soon. Much like Saudi Arabia, their pockets were deep, and they were willing to spend big to achieve these aims.
In the 2016 to 2017 season, they signed the Brazilian talent Oscar to Shanghai SIPG on a huge salary of £400,000 a week, soon surpassed by Carlos Teves who signed for Shanghai Shenhua on a whopping £600,000 a week.
This raised concerns from significant individuals in European football. Arsene Wenger advised “we have to be worried because China has the strength to lure every player from Europe” . The attempted ‘takeover’ has since become a somewhat insignificant blip in football history, seducing us into a false sense of comfortability that the Saudi movement will follow the same path. However, there are stark differences that must be taken in-to account.
Firstly, China’s sudden lack of pull of European stars to their Super League was not a result of our own regard for football heritage over economic greed, but rather due to direct orders from the Communist Party in China. The Communist Party suddenly reversed their previous ambitions and decided they didn’t like the amount of money flowing out of China and into European and foreign pockets. To end this, they quickly introduced regulation and sanctions on the number of foreign players allowed to play in their domestic league.
Secondly, football is a minority sport in China. Unlike in Saudi Arabia, in which football has been the leading sport for decades. The Riyadh derby draws crowds as large as Manchester and North London Derby’s. As well as this, Saudi Arabia have increased motivation, to lessen their reliance on oil as their primary source of income and confront national health concerns with 60% of their population being overweight.
The Saudis mean business when it comes to investment and privatisation. Eight teams in the Saudi Pro League are now owned by subsidiary companies of the royal family. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the nation’s sovereign wealth fund (Who own Newcastle United FC) has taken over the four largest teams in their domestic league: Al Nassr, Al-Ittihad, Al Hilal and Al-Ahli.
When it comes to the top four teams of the Saudi Pro League, their economic pockets appear bottomless. Already confirmed transfers include recent Ballond’or winner Karim Benzema, Champions League and World Cup winner N’golo Kante and a primed Ruben Neves on the verge of his dream signing to FC Barcelona.
As Carragher puts it, 30 year old players such as Benzema, Kante and Ronaldo transferring to the Saudi Pro League do not raise serious alarm bells as this might just be a repeat of the MLS and Chinese Super League, which became extremely well paid retirement homes for the elite.
However, there has been strong transfer rumours of 28 year old Portuguese star Benardo Silva completing a transfer to the Saudi Pro League whilst very much in his prime. Were this to go through, the Saudi football movement would have little historical comparison and would have to be taken seriously by European football.
There have been examples of players overcoming economic greed. Such as Tottenham star Son Heung-Min who, after interest from Saudi Arabia, intends to stay at spurs: “I have many things to do in the Premier League. Money doesn’t matter to me now, and the pride of playing football, to play in my favourite league is important. I want to play more for Tottenham in the Premier League. I’ll prepare well when I’m back at Spurs”.
Other significant figures such as managers Steven Gerrard and Jose Mourinho, as well as footballers such as Luka Modric and Romelu Lukaku have also turned down offers and wish to continue in Europe.
We hope that enough prominent figures turn down the temptation of the Saudi gold filled contracts, which in turn may lead to transfers to the Saudi Pro League being more publicly scrutinised and condemned due to connotations of greediness.
Historical heritage and widespread passion for football is an incredible force for good and lightens the lives of so many. Football is for the fans and because of the fans. The Saudi Pro League is a new villain in the face of the sport we all love. Hopefully the beautiful game survives this, and European football retains its prestige and passion. However, one must not forget the power of money, which historically always wins.
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