Can Saudi Arabia Actually Buy Football?

Is the Saudi League's extravagant spending just a fad or is it the future of the sport?

The summer transfer window is open, and it is one that has had many unexpected transfers occur, such as Lionel Messi leaving Europe to join Inter Miami in the MLS. However, the most surprising development in this summer’s window doesn’t involve Messi; it doesn’t even involve a singular player or team, for that matter. In this summer’s case, an entire nation is making the headlines by extraordinarily investing in their league, and that nation is none other than Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis have already shown how much they can invest in sports, particularly when the nation’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), took over Premier League club Newcastle United, along with the formation of the LIV golf tour and its subsequent merger with their competitor, PGA. Now, Saudi Arabia are ramping up their efforts into investing in their already-existing football league, the Saudi Pro League. This includes recruiting veterans such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and N’Golo Kante to join Saudi clubs such as Al Nassr and Al Ittihad on lucrative contracts worth millions upon millions. This plan even extended into giving clubs money to pay transfer fees to buy younger talents such as Ruben Neves and Jota, who joined Al Hilal and Al Ittihad respectively.

In order to fork out these hefty wages and transfer fees, though, Saudi Arabia’s PIF had to step in and purchase Saudi Arabia’s four biggest and most popular clubs: Al Hilal, Al Nassr, Al Ittihad, and Al Ahli. Ever since PIF acquired the four clubs, they have all been linked with some of Europe’s most prominent talents, and have even been able to acquire said talents ahead of Europe’s most powerful clubs such as FC Barcelona. Now, this brings up the question of whether or not Saudi Arabia can keep up this incredible spending, along with whether or not any of this spending can lead to the Saudi League becoming a top football league.

Why Is Saudi Arabia poaching all of Europe’s top talents?

In the past few years, Saudi Arabia have ramped up their efforts into becoming a sporting superpower. This includes forming LIV Golf and buying Newcastle United, but along with all that, it also includes bids to host the World Cup and the Olympics (However, Saudi Arabia have pulled out of hosting the World Cup in 2030, but this doesn’t mean they won’t try to host in the future). Still, this brings up the question of why Saudi Arabia wants to “take over sports”. There are multiple possible answers to this, and as this is an incredibly controversial topic, I’ll try to stay as unbiased as possible and talk about just the facts, rather than putting opinion and emotion above all.

Saudi Arabia’s economy relies mainly on oil. However, the world is running out of oil, and because oil is a finite resource, countries such as Saudi Arabia can’t rely on it forever. What Saudi Arabia themselves claim is that they want to expand upon their economy beyond oil by investing in industries such as the sports industry in order to make the nation a sports superpower when all the oil is gone.

Critics of Saudi Arabia, though, have a much different claim. There is a word thrown around a lot nowadays that is important to this topic, and that word is “sportswashing”. This is when a nation uses sports to brainwash the general public into having a positive image of the nation, because of all the things they have contributed to sports. Football clubs such as the Qatari-owned PSG and the Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City, along with nations that have hosted the World Cup such as Qatar and Russia, have all been accused of sportswashing in order to better the negative image attached to their countries. Critics of Saudi Arabia’s investment will say that the investment into the Saudi Pro League is simply sportswashing to cover up the nation’s human rights record and that nothing that Saudi Arabia is doing for sports should be embraced with open arms.

Anyways, now that the why behind all of this is more cleared up, lets dive into other matters related to the Saudi Pro League and their efforts into becoming a top football league.

Can Saudi Arabia keep up this spending?

This isn’t the first time that a league has come out of nowhere to steal top talent from traditional footballing powers in Europe. Most recently, there was the Chinese Super League, which was purchasing top players from European clubs such as Oscar and Carlos Tevez in the late 2010s, with the assistance of the Chinese government. However, due to the lack of notable growth in statistics such as ticket sales in the CSL along with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese Super League collapsed almost as soon as it burst onto the scene. Although many forecast that the same disastrous fate awaits the Saudi League, there are reasons why one could think that the Saudi League could be more successful than the CSL. First, the ultimate nail in the CSL was the government putting a halt into investing into the league, so if Saudi Arabia doesn’t suddenly give up on pumping money into the league, their operation should last much longer than the CSL.

Along with that, Saudi Arabia, compared to China, is a football-obsessed nation. Teams such as Al Hilal and Al Ittihad have incredibly passionate and loyal supporters, which means that, unlike the CSL, the Saudi League shouldn’t have to worry about empty stadiums. Also, another argument is that Saudi Arabia is recruiting much better players than China managed to recruit. I mean, Ballon d’Or winners such as Ronaldo and Benzema are objectively better than players such as Oscar and Carlos Tevez.

Will the Saudi League become a top league?

Saudi Arabia obviously do have enough money to get the Saudi League to the top of the football world. That’s already evident enough with all the star power they’ve recruited. However, part of what makes leagues such as the Premier League and LaLiga compelling is history and star players of the past. Saudi Arabia could buy just about every single star player in Europe, but that couldn’t buy the same amount of history and prestige that leagues such as the Premier League have had for years.

Even if the Saudi League doesn’t crash and burn in the same manner that the CSL did, it would still be an uphill battle for the league to become a top 5 league.

Conclusion

Although the long-term future of the Saudi League remains unclear, it’s quite clear that the league will be a threat to the current status quo with all the money they can hand over to players and teams. So, yes, the future isn’t clear just yet, but for now, all we can do is sit back now and watch as the Saudi League continues to do what it’s been doing for this past summer window.

Now, it’s time for you to make your voice heard. Do you think that the Saudi Pro League will be a top 5 league in the next 5 years? Vote in the poll below.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to Sportsnetic and to share the newsletter with your friends.