The latest signing of Neymar, who goes from playing in France to playing in Saudi Arabia, moves astronomical figures. The huge plane that has taken the Brazilian player from Paris to Riyadh, which will be his new city of residence, has been one more example of this. Showing its significant financial muscle, the Al-Hilal Saudi Football Club sent a huge Boeing 747 to Le Bourget last Thursday.
The jumbo jet landed in the afternoon at the old airport in the French capital, now specialized in business aviation. On Friday morning, the Boeing was ready to return to its country of origin, carrying on board the new star of the most successful team in the Roshn Saudi League. Almost six hours of very comfortable flight in an airplane of exaggerated size for a transfer like this and that has a cost of about 23,000 euros per hour of flight.
Al-Hilal is one of the four soccer clubs in Saudi Arabia whose majority shareholder is PIF, the country's sovereign wealth fund, with 75% of the titles. Unlike other similar funds, the Saudi continues to invest, for the moment, most of its money in its territory, although its investments in other international interests are as important as they are varied: from the Californian electric car manufacturer Lucid, to the Japanese Nintendo, specialized in video games, the mobility company Uber, the Starbucks or Meta coffee maker, owner of Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram.
The PIF, for Public Investment Fund, also owns 16% of Kingdom Holding, the investment company of Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud. This has as one of his three personal planes the Boeing 747 in which Neymar flew this week. he did it to be presented as the new star of the team led in sports by the Portuguese Jorge Fernando Pinheiro de Jesus. The Bin Talal Jumbo is a model of the -400 series that originally flew for Air China, configured as a scheduled aircraft for 344 passengers and configured with three classes: 10 first class sleeper seats, 42 business class seats distributed between the front of the jumbo and the upper deck and 292 conventional economy class seats. The Chinese airline stopped flying the device in 2001. It was stored and perfectly preserved in an American airport for three years.
In 2004, when Bin Talal was listed as the fourth richest person in the world according to the famous Forbes list, he decided to get a sumptuous plane. His advisors advised him to get a second-hand 747 given the difficulty of having a new one within a reasonable time. The aircraft that had flown for the Chinese airline passed a severe technical control and its interior was completely reconfigured from a conventional commercial aircraft to have an ostentatious VIP interior, very much to the taste of its new owner: light wood, gold, flags, two private suites , meeting room and dining room with a robust table and large armchairs and even an isolated central seat in the front part of the cabin as a throne in heaven, a seat in which the Nigerian Odion Ighalo, a former Udinese player, Granada, Manchester United and who also played in Neymar's new team, wanted to be photographed in this unique chair. Industry sources consulted by La Vanguardia indicate that the prince invested close to 90 million euros to reform the interior of the device to his liking and with the greatest technological advances.
Bin Talal, who supported the training of the first Saudi commercial pilot with the promise of hiring her, also has aircraft for his own use and which he occasionally gives to third parties, an Airbus A321 and a small Hawker twin-jet, which compared to the 747 seems like a toy, although it is also a magnificent aircraft with which to fly without problems across an entire continent or on flights across arabia in a more discreet way than with a jumbo.
