Saudi Arabia shook the foundations of football last summer when it stormed the transfer market to take some of the biggest stars on the European scene. Months before, it was unthinkable to imagine the Ballon d'Or of the moment (Karim Benzema) or players with, a priori, still a lot of football in their boots such as Neymar, Mané, Mahrez, Fabinho or Firmino joining Cristiano Ronaldo's golden retirement in the Al Nassr, with an exorbitant contract after the World Cup in Qatar (200 million dollars salary until 2025).
Far from wanting to be an elephant graveyard, the ambitious Saudi Pro League wanted to go further. He acquired footballers in the prime of their careers such as Rúben Neves - tempted by clubs like Barça -, Milinkovic-Savic, the ex-Blaugrana Malcom and the promising Spaniard Gabri Veiga. Huge amounts of money were also paid for them, which made the competition the third in the world with the most spending on transfers: 873.5 million euros on more than 190 footballers, only behind the all-powerful Premier League (2,810 million euros) and very close to Ligue 1 (900.6 million). Numbers that will not be repeated next summer, which will be a relief for more than one club to see that the threat of losing any of their figures will not be as serious as last year.
The Saudi kingdom's plans seem to have changed. After the Saudi sovereign fund (PIF) injected petrodollars freely and bought 75% of the country's main clubs, the objective is now to settle the accounts, build a more sustainable model and boost the internal transfer market. According to Saudi Pro League CEO Carlo Nohra, there are no plans to increase the allocation.
"The agreements were not signed just for one season, so it will be necessary for the clubs to act. They will have to get rid of players to free up some budget if they want to make more signings," Nohra admitted to the Bloomberg agency. The Saudi kingdom took over 75% of Benzema's Al Ittihad, Cristiano's Al Nassr, Neymar's Al Hihal and Al Ahli, which allowed them to create powerful clubs overnight with top-level transfers. The rest of the clubs also benefited from this plan to create a new football brand.
The medium-term objective is for the competition to have a turnover of 480 million dollars annually, some figures that are far from being achieved despite the hitherto non-existent television interest. 130 countries acquired the television rights to the league, four times more than in 2022, although initial interest seems to have faded. The pending issue remains to improve the presence of local fans in the stadiums. The average is 8,321 spectators per game, 10% less than the previous season.
Without the desired social mass, it is important for Nohra to invest in the facilities. We must improve the consumer experience, it is part of the transformation strategy." Saudi Arabia is working on the construction of new stadiums. It will host the Asian Cup in 2027 and if there is no unexpected turn, it will be the organizing country of the 2034 World Cup. To do this, it will need at least 14 stadiums with capacity for 14,000 spectators, requirements that only two currently meet.
Sport is one of the legs of Saudi Vision 2030, a project whose challenge is to make the kingdom less dependent on oil. For this reason, they are betting above all on football, also because of the media interest it arouses throughout the planet, ideal for the practice of sportswashing that the dictatorship has been carrying out in recent times, in order to whiten the country with an openness. questioned by some renowned organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch.
