The crazy transfer market in the Saudi Pro League

Mohammed bin Salman, crown prince to the Saudi crown, has been promoting for some time now a project focused on breaking the dependence on fossil fuels that his country has had for several decades. For that reason, he created an investment fund called the Public Investment Fund, which is one of the most powerful sovereign wealth funds in the world, with shares in companies like Disney or Uber. The fund is a means for the Saudi government to invest its money in different areas.

Among the many areas where the Public Investment Fund has decided to invest is sports and, of course, football is one of the main protagonists. That was the reason why Saudi Arabia, through the fund, decided to buy 80% of Newcastle United in 2021 and, in a certain way, gain a presence in European football as Qatar had already done through the City Group or Paris Saint Germain.

As if this were not enough, at the end of 2022, in what would be the opening of a series of star signings for the Saudi league, Cristiano Ronaldo arrived in the country to join Al Nassr, one of the four most important teams in Saudi Arabia, for a salary of 200 million euros per season. During the first half of 2023, the Saudi government announced the privatization of the country’s football clubs and that the Public Investment Fund would take over 75% of the shares of the big four; Al Nassr, Al Hilal, Al Ahly, and Al Ittihad.

This measure will allow the clubs to have more money to make transfers in order to achieve the government’s objective with this change, which is to place their league among the 10 best in the world, considering that currently, some experts consider it to be between 50 and 60 in the world, close to the level of, for example, League One in England (third tier).

The case of Arabia is somewhat reminiscent of China a few years ago, but in the Chinese case, the government encouraged private individuals to invest in what turned out to be a bubble that eventually burst. In Arabia, the investment is made by the government itself, so it has much more solid support in addition to being anchored to the prince’s 2030 project

As soon as the privatization of the clubs was announced by the Saudi government, waves of rumors and transfers began. Next, we are going to review the main names that have arrived in the Saudi Professional League since the announcement.

Karim Benzema

After finalizing the signing of a Real Madrid legend like Cristiano Ronaldo, Arabia went for another legend of Los Blancos and also current the current Ballon d’Or winner. Funny enough, the two top scorers in the history of Real Madrid are currently playing in the Middle Eastern country. The French striker was ending his contract and decided to accept Al Ittihad’s proposal to play there for two years for 100 million euros per season. The confrontation between Benzema and Cristiano is going to be one of the great attractions of this Saudi Professional League.

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N’Golo Kante

The French defensive midfielder was one of the great architects of Leicester City’s Premier League title in 2016, the World Cup in France in 2018, and various trophies for Chelsea during his years at the London club. In the last season, injuries were tormenting him and he had an almost testimonial participation with the Blues he was in his last year of contract, so the appearance of Al Ittihad accompanied by the possibility of sharing a team with Benzema, led Kante to go to Saudi Arabia

N’Golo Kanté to Al Ittihad 🟡⚫️🇸🇦🇫🇷

◉ Four year contract signed.

◉ €100m total salary paid in four years.

◉ Image rights/commercial deals extra;

◉ Negotiations started on June 6 and deal now finally set to be announced.

End of an era for Chelsea legend. 🔵✨ pic.twitter.com/kS8taYnuO1

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 18, 2023

Ruben Neves

Unlike the cases of Cristiano, Benzema, or Kante, who are already over thirty years old, Ruben Neves is at an age and in a state of form that made us think that he would continue playing in Europe and even in a more renowned team than Wolverhampton since the possibility of him signing for FC Barcelona was rumored.

The most surprising thing in the case of Ruben Neves is that Al Hilal made a payment of 55 million euros to sign him, something that raised alarms in Europe since it shows the economic power of the Arab football environment and its ability to attract talents to its league.

Official, confirmed. Rúben Neves joins Al Hilal on permanent deal from Wolves for €55m fee, record sale for English club. 🔵🇸🇦🇵🇹 #transfers

Neves has signed as Wolves player until June 2026. pic.twitter.com/O2nwCRjefX

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 23, 2023

Kalidou Koulibaly

It is rumored (without having anything official) that the Public Investment Fund has investments in Clearlake Capital, a company that is part of the group led by Todd Boehly to buy Chelsea. That creates a relationship between the English team and the Saudi government that may have had something to do with Koulibaly’s signing (as well as rumors of other signings) by Al Hilal just a year after he came to the blue team. The signing was around 23 million euros.

Official, confirmed. Kalidou Koulibaly joins Al Hilal on €23m fee to Chelsea — permanent transfer on three year deal. 🔵🇸🇦 #CFC #Saudi

He’s gonna play together with Rúben Neves. pic.twitter.com/WCufevVeIr

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 25, 2023

This relationship would explain a bit why several of the players that Chelsea have as transferables are being or have been linked to a team in the Saudi league, since if we review the rumors of this market, we have that Edouard Mendy is being probed by Al Ahli or Hakim Ziyech for Al Nassr, with the latter being practically closed, in addition to the aforementioned Koulibaly. To this, we add that Al Hilal is interested in signing Romelu Lukaku who still belongs to Chelsea although in this case, it seems that the Belgian wants to continue in Europe.

Additionally, Saudi Arabia is looking to strengthen itself with some players from the Spanish league and rumors are being heard about the possible signing of Saúl from Atletico Madrid by one of the powerful ones from the Middle Eastern country since there have been reports of approaches from Al Nassr and the Al Ittihad. Saúl has lost space in the Madrid club in the last two seasons and his departure could be easier from that point of view.

Likewise, there are rumors of interest in taking the Portuguese midfielder from Betis, William Carvalho, to the team of his compatriot Cristiano Ronaldo, Al Nassr. Marcelo Brozovic is another who could accompany the Portuguese star as Inter Milan are said to have accepted the €23m offer for the Croatian. Sergio Ramos, Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Steven Bergwijn, and many others seem that could continue to lengthen the list of players leaving Europe to play in Saudi Arabia.