The lists have been drawn up and the financing secured.
Saudi Arabia is looking to lure some of the world’s best-known soccer players
to join Cristiano Ronaldo in its national league. And to close the deals, it is
relying on money, the one commodity it knows it can offer more of than any of
its rival leagues.
اضافة اعلان
Similar in ambition to the Saudi-financed campaign to
dominate golf through the new LIV series, the plan appears to be a centralized
effort — supported at the highest levels in Saudi Arabia, and financed by the
kingdom’s huge sovereign wealth fund — to turn the country’s domestic league, a
footnote on the global soccer stage, into a destination for top talent.
To make that happen, Saudi clubs are already approaching
players receptive to moving to the kingdom with some of the highest annual
salaries in sports history. The deals could require in excess of $1 billion for
wages for some 20 foreign players.
Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time world player of the year, has
led the way. He joined the Saudi club Al-Nassr after the 2022 World Cup, in a
deal reported to be worth $200 million per season. Last month, Al-Nassr
narrowly missed out on the league championship on the penultimate week of the
season, but for those running the Saudi league, Ronaldo’s presence alone was a
victory in that it ensured unprecedented attention on the country’s top
division, the Saudi Premier League.
Since Ronaldo arrived, the Saudi league has been considering
whether to centrally coordinate more big-money signings in order to distribute
talent evenly among the biggest teams, according to interviews with agents,
television executives, Saudi sports officials, and consultants hired to execute
the project, the details of which have not previously been reported. The people
spoke on condition of anonymity because the deals involved were private.
In recent weeks, leaks about huge offers to famous players
have mounted: Lionel Messi, who led Argentina to the World Cup title in
December, is said to have been tempted by a contract even richer than Ronaldo’s
Saudi deal; and French striker Karim Benzema, the reigning world player of the
year, has reportedly agreed to leave Real Madrid for a nine-figure deal to play
in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi league’s British CEO, Garry Cook, a former Nike
executive who briefly ran Manchester City after it was bought by the brother of
the ruler of the UAE, has been tasked with executing the plans. Cook did not
respond to an email seeking comment. League officials also did not respond to
requests for comment about the plans.
The project comes on the heels of a surprisingly strong performance
by Saudi Arabia at last year’s men’s World Cup in Qatar. The team’s run
included a stunning victory over the eventual champion, Argentina, which stoked
pride on the Saudi streets and in the halls of power in Riyadh. The project’s
goal is not so much to make the Saudi league an equal of century-old
competitions like England’s Premier League or other top European competitions,
but to increase Saudi influence in the sport, and perhaps boost its profile as
it bids for the 2030 World Cup.
But the effort also is reminiscent of a similar scheme a
decade ago in which China sought to force its way into the global soccer
conversation through a series of high-profile and high-dollar acquisitions.
That bold plan, eventually marred by broken contracts, economic implosions, and
the coronavirus pandemic, is now seemingly at an end.
The plans for the Saudi league to become the dominant
domestic competition in Asia are similarly subject to the whims of the
country’s leadership, and could yet be derailed by a sudden change of
direction, or an ability to sign the kind of elite talents being pursued. The
players, too, would be committing to contracts with teams that in the past have
been regular attendees at arbitration hearings over claims of unpaid fees and
salaries.
According to the interviews with people familiar with the
project, the league, and not the clubs, would centrally negotiate player
transfers and assign players to certain teams, in a model similar to the one
used by Major League Soccer as it built its global profile. Centralized
signings would be a departure from what is typical in much of the rest of the
world, where clubs directly acquire and trade players independently.
The size of the Saudi war chest is unclear, but officials
briefed on the subject say it is as hefty as the list of players the league has
identified as potential recruits. Much of the money invested in the league and
the clubs in recent times has come from the Public Investment Fund, the
country’s sovereign wealth fund chaired by the kingdom’s powerful crown prince,
Mohammed bin Salman.
The fund has signed 20-year commercial agreements worth tens
of millions of dollars with the four most popular clubs in the Saudi Premier
League. Those deals will require the teams, two from Riyadh and two from the
Red Sea port city of Jeddah, to play games at new arenas in entertainment
complexes being built by PIF subsidiaries. The PIF also sponsors the league
itself through one of the companies in its portfolio, real estate developer
Roshn.
According to one of the people briefed on the plans, who
spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss
them publicly, the goal is for the four biggest teams to field three top
foreign players each, and for another eight players to be distributed among the
remaining 12 teams in the league.
The move for greater centralization of the league would end
a period of autonomy granted to the clubs, and is further indication of the
Saudi state’s interest in using sports as part of a drive to alter perceptions
of the kingdom on the global stage, and diversify its economy away from oil.
Saudi Arabia has been among the biggest spenders in global sports in recent
years, bringing major events to the kingdom and investing in sports properties.
PIF has been the driving force behind much of that, too. Two
years ago it acquired Newcastle United, an English Premier League club, and
through its funding and smart recruitment helped it to achieve its best league
finish in decades and a place in next season’s Champions League. The Saudi oil
company, Aramco, is a major sponsor of the Formula 1 auto racing series. But
perhaps the PIF’s splashiest efforts have been in golf, where it has poured
billions into creating LIV, the rival competition to the established tours in North
America and Europe
Discussions with potential soccer recruits and their agents
are underway. Saudi Arabia’s sudden and cash-soaked presence is likely to
create further chaos in soccer’s typically frenzied summer player transfer
window, which typically runs from June through August.
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