Saudi signing wave: What are the implications? Is it weakening the Premier League?

[Red in STL]

There is no such thing as a bottomless pit. The reason billionaires are billionaires (even the Arabs) is NOT philanthropy. You can't throw a billion at footballers and remain a billionaire without recouping that money eventually - and if it looks like they won't recoup it will they really carry on just to make it the biggest "feck you" exercise the world has ever seen? Why do you think the CCP pulled out in the end?

This is the Saudi state, they don't work in billions, they work in trillions

And this isn't about football, it's about turning the country in to a Dubai type place, football is a tiny part of it that accounts for about 2% of their spending

 

[adexkola]

European salaries have, with very few exceptions, been proportional to the value they add to the club through commercial and sporting revenue and therefore justifiable.This isn’t the case with the Saudi clubs.

That is not true. Many clubs have had financial difficulties due to excessive expenditures, the major contributor being player compensation.

People have bemoaned high player salaries in Europe for years.

And none of us are privy to the math going on behind the scenes at Saudi clubs. They could be burning money for the fun of it. They could also have a long term ROI plan in place. The salaries are eye watering, but that's nothing new.

 

[MegadrivePerson]

Marcos Llorente on the verge of moving now. Really surprised by that, thought he would be at Atletico for years to come.

 

[redshaw]

I just hope clubs hold firm and try not to compete with salaries taking on too much debt. If a player goes to Saudi just accept it, there's a bigger fish in the game now which could be permanent or not, there's enough players coming through worldwide to remain a good league even if some do end up there. More good players will be found to supplant the leagues around the world, Europe won't be the top destination for some and that's fine.

I grew up watching Serie A on TV, they were spending large amounts but United in the old first division with Bryan Robson Mark Hughes and so on meant a million times more. I still remember when hearing about Lentini going for 13 million, it was crazy money at the time, it would be similar to hearing about a 500-800 million fee today.

 

[Zehner]

This is the Saudi state, they don't work in billions, they work in trillions

And this isn't about football, it's about turning the country in to a Dubai type place, football is a tiny part of it that accounts for about 2% of their spending

Yeah but they buy publicity not quality and the players move there for money not glory. IMO that implies various things:

- in terms of "brand awareness", the return on their investment diminishes with every star player they sign. A year ago, signing a name like Sadio Mané would have created immense attention. But when you have already signed Cristiano Ronaldo, signing Mané will still generate much attention but far less than it would have done before CR7

- at some point, you'll have so many big names that signing more will barely increase the popularity further, so why sign them?

- they will not generate their own stars since they have to "import" popularity so every player who wants to earn big in Saudi Arabia first needs to acquire stardom in Europe

- since the players who move there do it for the money and the trophies are meaningless (and the competition a farce) the quality of football will never be as high, meaning that no player there will ever be seen as a legimitimate contendor for the Ballon D'Or or something like this

 

[TsuWave]

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ball-saudi-arabia-big-money-cristiano-ronaldo

If sustained, the scale of the finance behind the Saudi Pro League means that, even if Mbappé follows Lionel Messi in choosing to play elsewhere, the flow of talent towards the highest pay on offer is now inevitable. If you want to watch the best players, consume the premium product, the Saudi league may soon be a fixture in your content mix. But will anything truly change in the relationship between the fans and a sport that could plausibly be under new ownership soon? Or is this merely a further debasement of an already utterly corrupted product that we’ll nevertheless keep on consuming?

Fans with attachments to domestic leagues in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, Belgium or Scotland have seen this sort of thing before. Accelerating in the early 1990s, the successful commercialisation and marketisation to global TV audiences of a small number of powerful leagues led to an increased concentration of talent in England, Spain and Italy, directly at the expense of “smaller” leagues, which were turned into relative backwaters. The extractive relationship between European football and the African continent had been established long before, running directly along colonial lines.

The hoarding of talent may have hollowed out other leagues, but in England the Premier League is celebrated as a great national success story regardless. Subsequent attempts to protect the integrity of competition from the “financial doping” of petro-states and oligarchs have proved no match for the legal teams of alleged offenders.

US billionaires, hedge funds and private equity companies are now widely regarded as a relatively bland, least-bad option as club owners. Crucially, for the most part they have politely chosen to keep elite football at “home” (ie in powerful European nations), allowing the illusion to persist that it is still “our” game, no matter how high the cost of tickets and subscriptions for us to be allowed to enjoy it.

You might think football belongs to the people, but rest assured it is already a minor, if particularly conspicuous, part of someone else’s diversified and sustainable investment portfolio.

 

[Red in STL]

Yeah but they buy publicity not quality and the players move there for money not glory. IMO that implies various things:

- in terms of "brand awareness", the return on their investment diminishes with every star player they sign. A year ago, signing a name like Sadio Mané would have created immense attention. But when you have already signed Cristiano Ronaldo, signing Mané will still generate much attention but far less than it would have done before CR7

- at some point, you'll have so many big names that signing more will barely increase the popularity further, so why sign them?

- they will not generate their own stars since they have to "import" popularity so every player who wants to earn big in Saudi Arabia first needs to acquire stardom in Europe

- since the players who move there do it for the money and the trophies are meaningless (and the competition a farce) the quality of football will never be as high, meaning that no player there will ever be seen as a legimitimate contendor for the Ballon D'Or or something like this

The Saudi's are not after a return on investment in these matters, what they are doing doesn't have a whole lot to do with football, they are trying to turn their country into a Saudi version of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, tourism, business hubs and all the other kinds of stuff that Dubai have done over the last 30 years, football is just a tiny part of the jigsaw they are trying to build

 

[Zehner]

The Saudi's are not after a return on investment in these matters, what they are doing doesn't have a whole lot to do with football, they are trying to turn their country into a Saudi version of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, tourism, business hubs and all the other kinds of stuff that Dubai have done over the last 30 years, football is just a tiny part of the jigsaw they are trying to build

But how does that contradict what I wrote?

 

[Red in STL]

But how does that contradict what I wrote?

It doesn't but you're focusing on the football aspect which is only a tiny part of it, you are implying it will be a failure because of X, Y and Z without taking in to account the A to W part of the plan, it's the sum of the whole that matters to them not just X, Y and Z

 

[BrilliantOrange]

So how would the Saudi competition all star team look like right now?

 

[Zehner]

It doesn't but you're focusing on the football aspect which is only a tiny part of it, you are implying it will be a failure because of X, Y and Z without taking in to account the A to W part of the plan, it's the sum of the whole that matters to them not just X, Y and Z

Yes but isn't the thread about the implicstions on the EPL/European club football?

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

If Saudi Arabia want to turn their country into a tourism hub, I would suggest spending billions of dollars on a tourism ad campaign and not on football players.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

You can use "Saudi magical money" to say anything, pretty much.

"The Saudis are spending 6 billion dollars on grafting dolphin fins to 100k people, putting them in an aquarium, and charging extra for the tickets."

"hey this sounds like a bad plan"

"IT'S A DROP IN THE BUCKET FOR THEM! THEY'RE NOT LOOKING FOR RETURN ON INVESTMENT ON THE AQUARIUM ADMISSIONS!"

 

[Wumminator]

You can use "Saudi magical money" to say anything, pretty much.

"The Saudis are spending 6 billion dollars on grafting dolphin fins to 100k people, putting them in an aquarium, and charging extra for the tickets."

"hey this sounds like a bad plan"

"IT'S A DROP IN THE BUCKET FOR THEM! THEY'RE NOT LOOKING FOR RETURN ON INVESTMENT ON THE AQUARIUM ADMISSIONS!"

Genuine question.

What do you think their plan is then?

 

[Demyanenko_square_jaw]

I’m more than certain people weren’t acting the same way when Russia and China did the same exact thing. All of a sudden it’s bad for the PL and it’s nothing but sports washing. There is a clear difference between the way people have been acting towards the Middle East.

i wouldn't put the Russian league of '00s/'10s in the same sort of category as those two.

In the 90s it was an already long established (as part of ussr) Uefa region league that was mostly drifting about the 6-12 coefficient places. Teams had no money and most decent players (with some big exceptions) moved abroad.

That changed in the '00s to a league that was generally around the same positions (though had eventually more closely consolidated slightly outside top five) but that now had good money in a handful of teams; definitely rich by the standards of the other leagues outside the top 5.

It then simply became a new player in the European market, one that mostly attempted realistic acquisitions for the standard it was currently at. It was filled with short termist thinking, but didn't try and flood the league with players that were far above the current standard of domestic football, or old has-been legends; many of the better players were still Russian/other ex-ussr region, though that changed by the '10s when the youth system neglect became apparent.

Zenit during the Hulk era with their heavier, focused gazprom backing was the closest to a PSG sort of project, but was struggling to get going (FFP probably more likely to pressure them than the likes of City or PSG) and massively overpaying for the likes of Witsel, who wasn't even an overall improvement on previous cheap homegrown players in his position.

Shakhtar and Dynamo Kyiv didn't attempt to be too extravagant with their money when they came through the '90s struggles either. The former creating a specific strategy of buying smart and cheap from the Brazilian market.

Looking at the foreigners Russian teams bought during the '00s boom, or the squads cska, Zenit and Shakhtar won their Uefa Cups with. Some quality players, but not a single name there likely bought while also under significant interest from strong top four league clubs. No big names that were bought from them while still in their prime. A lot of key players are Russian/Ukrainian or Brazilians that had been dismissed/ignored by better teams, and mostly weren't considered big domestic talents when bought. Zenit's win was with a squad assembled before Gazprom started spending big and poaching top talent from throughout the league.

 

[crossy1686]

Genuine question.

What do you think their plan is then?

Their plan is to replace the money they used to make from oil with tourism and other rights deals it would seem.

 

[Gehrman]

Genuine question.

What do you think their plan is then?

Prestige. Like showing off your Porches.

 

[adexkola]

Prestige. Like showing off your Porches.

Or yachts. Or harem.

 

[Red in STL]

Genuine question.

What do you think their plan is then?

Their plan is to turn Saudi into a bigger version of Dubai, change their income streams from oil based to tourism and business

 

[Kellyiom]

This is the Saudi state, they don't work in billions, they work in trillions

And this isn't about football, it's about turning the country in to a Dubai type place, football is a tiny part of it that accounts for about 2% of their spending

Yes, it's staggering. That 1km cube structure they're building in Riyadh that combines a load of leisure and residential property is a mega project then there's the new city of NEOM, 100km long on the red sea all part of the vision 2030 scheme.

 

[Red in STL]

Yes, it's staggering. That 1km cube structure they're building in Riyadh that combines a load of leisure and residential property is a mega project then there's the new city of NEOM, 100km long on the red sea all part of the vision 2030 scheme.

+ a brand new airport with 6 runways and a new national airline to complement the existing ones with 100+ new Airbus and Boeing planes

 

[Tap]

It just a disgrace. I'm so disappointed with the players that has left for Saudi this window. No morals and no ambition. Just greed, greed, greed.
Sportswashing win, humanity lose.

Everyone just stay away from watching it!

i wouldn’t associate morality and non-greed with Europe either.

About ambition though, you are probably right

 

[Wumminator]

Who are we expecting to go late on? Laporte looks like he's there now

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

there's the new city of NEOM, 100km long on the red sea all part of the vision 2030 scheme.

NEOM is pretty good evidence that the Saudi's plans were conceived during a 3-day cocaine bender.

 

[ROFLUTION]

Saw it mentioned in an article but a good and overlooked point is that sportswashing in context of Saudi Arabia’s league simply also have a purpose of keeping the (extremely poor in many places) population happy and a way of controlling the masses via propaganda (i.e look what we’re doing for you).

That idea is not exactly new and works universally all over the globe basically.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

Genuine question.

What do you think their plan is then?

My objection is not to the idea that Saudis have plans, just to the handwaving of any criticism with "they have unlimited money so it can't fail."

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

This is from the Financial Times, article is titled "Saudi Arabia’s sleepy city offers prince a cautionary tale."

With its pristine beaches, manicured lawns and rows of newly built villas, the King Abdullah Economic City bears all the hallmarks of the modern Saudi Arabia envisaged by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Women walk freely without the long, cloak-like abayas. A golf course nestles up against the Red Sea coastline and international companies including Pfizer and Mars have opened factories in the city. Yet the development instead serves as a cautionary tale of the challenges the young heir apparent faces as he pursues a highly ambitious programme to overhaul the conservative kingdom, including his own plans for a new $500bn megacity, Neom.

The King Abdullah city, also known as KAEC, was launched a decade ago as part of a $30bn project to build six cities to diversify the oil-dependent economy, attract foreign investment, create 1.3m jobs and add $150bn to gross domestic product. But only one of the six made it off the drawing board, King Abdullah city, which today has a population of just 7,000 people set against a target of 2m by 2035.

Despite offering more social freedoms than other Saudi cities, King Abdullah city, 145km north of Jeddah, feels eerily quiet and empty. It was intended to be a hub for logistics and manufacturing. But its struggle to attract investors and residents has underlined a perennial battle the kingdom faces bringing in foreign capital beyond the energy sector.

“If KAEC was viable the city would have taken off a long time ago. Their marketing was amazing but the whole concept behind it was flawed,” said a former government adviser. “The economic base was never there.”

You can make all sorts of plan to diversify your economy. It doesn't mean they are good. It doesn't mean they have any serious chance of succeeding.

 

[cyberman]

Na, the problem is there for Spanish and Italian clubs below the top 2/3 who haven’t the money to spend on wages. Saudi can really clean up there if they put their minds to it

 

[Dannn411]

While I don't underestimate the desperation of footballers to being highly-paid, I still think Saudi is a long way off threatening Europe. It goes far beyond money to compete with Europe. Its also about infrastructure. No continent is even remotely close when it comes to the infrastructure and economy around the game and that takes several decades if not a full century to build. The media, the stadiums, the religious fan following and everything else.

Then there is the little matter of legacy. If you are a young player with high potential that wants to be remembered as one of the greatest of all time, there are certain boxes you need to tick off and those boxes will never change. Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia and the US, 90% of those boxes revolve around Europe because of the sheer depth of quality of competition. Champions League, La Liga/PL/Serie A, Big 3 league cup competitions like Copa Del Rey, FA Cup, Coppa Italia etc. For Saudi to compete they not only have to develop their league but they have to raise the level and quality of competition considerably around them in Asia and the Middle East. Good luck with that.

Overall, I still see Saudi as more or less a semi-retirement league thats just further ahead of the MLS in quality because of the financial firepower they have. But I think for young footballers in their prime or approaching their prime, it's still going to be Europe before anywhere else.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

While I don't underestimate the desperation of footballers to being highly-paid, I still think Saudi is a long way off threatening Europe. It goes far beyond money to compete with Europe. Its also about infrastructure. No continent is even remotely close when it comes to the infrastructure and economy around the game and that takes several decades if not a full century to build. The media, the stadiums, the religious fan following and everything else.

Then there is the little matter of legacy. If you are a young player with high potential that wants to be remembered as one of the greatest of all time, there are certain boxes you need to tick off and those boxes will never change. Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia and the US, 90% of those boxes revolve around Europe because of the sheer depth of quality of competition. Champions League, La Liga/PL/Serie A, Big 3 league cup competitions like Copa Del Rey, FA Cup, Coppa Italia etc. For Saudi to compete they not only have to develop their league but they have to raise the level and quality of competition considerably around them in Asia and the Middle East. Good luck with that.

Overall, I still see Saudi as more or less a semi-retirement league thats just further ahead of the MLS in quality because of the financial firepower they have. But I think for young footballers in their prime or approaching their prime, it's still going to be Europe before anywhere else.

Saudi are development on steroids, you can't really compare them to other places. In just six or seven months they've become arguably the strongest league outside of Europe there's been in the last 20-25 years already. Nobody has ever has had this much money and put so much of it into sport.

As for legacy, yes it will take a while but they have just bought 2 of the top 3 footballers in the world on Instagram (Ronaldo and Neymar), who will be posting about the league to billions of people, the other next most popular Messi is also bought to talk about Saudi Arabia. They will just keep paying everyone to talk about it, players with far bigger reaches than clubs or even full leagues. Money talks, that's part of the reason why everyone is coming to the Premier League. Why do you think a player from Argentina would pick Manchester or Newcastle over say Seville or Florence other than they pay more money? Why do all the top players go to PSG instead of Ajax and Celtic, who have a far better history and legacy? With the way they're currently spending they will 100% go way beyond the MLS, China and other equivalent leagues.

 

[Dannn411]

Saudi are development on steroids, you can't really compare them to other places. In just six or seven months they've become arguably the strongest league outside of Europe there's been in the last 20-25 years already. Nobody has ever has had this much money and put so much of it into sport.

As for legacy, yes it will take a while but they have just bought 2 of the top 3 footballers in the world on Instagram (Ronaldo and Neymar), who will be posting about the league to billions of people, the other next most popular Messi is also bought to talk about Saudi Arabia. They will just keep paying everyone to talk about it, players with far bigger reaches than clubs or even full leagues. Money talks, that's part of the reason why everyone is coming to the Premier League. Why do you think a player from Argentina would pick Manchester or Newcastle over say Seville or Florence other than they pay more money? Why do all the top players go to PSG instead of Ajax and Celtic, who have a far better history and legacy? With the way they're currently spending they will 100% go way beyond the MLS, China and other equivalent leagues.

I hear you on pace of development but infrastructure but it still takes a long time to build and get up to scratch and they have other priorities in their economy too such as the Neom mega city and other things.

On the footballer front I'm still not worried. Ronaldo and Neymar are way way out of their primes and aren't top 3 footballers in the world anymore in my opinion and haven't been for a while now. They are also egotistical on massive wages and don't want to take pay cuts which is why they are happy to move to Saudi. Ronaldo famously held out for as long as he could to find someone in Europe willing to take him before finally making the move with no other option available. What would truly rock Europe is if Haaland or Mbappe makes the move to Saudi Arabia in their primes right now and the chances of that happening are next to nil. At least we have the evidence of Mbappe and Al Hilal for that.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

In just six or seven months they've become arguably the strongest league outside of Europe there's been in the last 20-25 years already.

They haven't.

 

[Varun1]

I saw it as an opportunity for a clear out in the EPL, a fresh start in a way. But feck me, they've gone and blown the money on more shite. In our case, we can't even shift our shite.

 

[Strelok]

Come on Saudi league. 50m and one of the best English CB is yours. Of course it'll make us and the PL weaker but money always talks.

 

[redshaw]

One aspect not talked about much or at all is managers. If they can pull people in like Pep then that could tip the balance.

 

[justsomebloke]

I hear you on pace of development but infrastructure but it still takes a long time to build and get up to scratch and they have other priorities in their economy too such as the Neom mega city and other things.

On the footballer front I'm still not worried. Ronaldo and Neymar are way way out of their primes and aren't top 3 footballers in the world anymore in my opinion and haven't been for a while now. They are also egotistical on massive wages and don't want to take pay cuts which is why they are happy to move to Saudi. Ronaldo famously held out for as long as he could to find someone in Europe willing to take him before finally making the move with no other option available. What would truly rock Europe is if Haaland or Mbappe makes the move to Saudi Arabia in their primes right now and the chances of that happening are next to nil. At least we have the evidence of Mbappe and Al Hilal for that.

That can only be described as sanguine to the point of stubborn complacency (and you're one in a crowd on that point, in this thread). When you look at the volume and quality of the players who have left for SA in this window and then put that in the context of how that looked just 9 months ago (when there were literally none) and also in the context of their stated intention (which is to keep doing this for the foreseeable future), and the sort of resources they have available, I find it genuinely amazing that people are actually capable of looking at that and then convince themselves that nah, this is just like this chinese thing a few years ago, it'll just blow over. And that there's no need to worry until they nab one of the best two players in the world, as if that was a threshold that made any kind of sense. That's like not worrying about nuclear weapons until you've been vaporised.

And come on, Neymar is not a has-been. He is still - unlike CR - a top player, arguably among the top 20 in the world. He'd be a key player for any club in the world.

Where and how far this goes, that's debatable. That it's a thing of significant consequence that will affect the PL or other European Leagues, that is already obvious beyond any question.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

They haven't.

Which was stronger?

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

You are the one who said they were "arguably" the strongest, make the argument then.

 

[Scandi Red]

Does anyone have a complete list of all notable players who have joined a Saudi team this year? I know about Ronaldo, Neymar, Mane and Henderson but I know that there are at least 3 more players that I have forgotten about.

 

[MegadrivePerson]

Does anyone have a complete list of all notable players who have joined a Saudi team this year? I know about Ronaldo, Neymar, Mane and Henderson but I know that there are at least 3 more players that I have forgotten about.

Benzima, Firmino Kante, Mahrez and Fabinho?

There's a list of all transfers here,
Saudi Pro League - Transfers 23/24 | Transfermarkt