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Since the Saudi football clubs have started buying players from Europe financially supported by their government, many have been wondering how far this new Saudi football league can go, until yesterday almost unknown and today on all the front pages of the sports magazines and more. The country’s football ambitions are now evident, driven by economic and political needs that have already had a significant impact in other sports, as in the case of golf.
For football there is talk of a budget of 17 billion euros allocated by the Saudi government to strengthen and support the growth of the movement between now and 2030. At the apex of this movement is the Saudi Pro League, which through the large investments this summer it wants to enter the international football market as an alternative to existing leagues and tournaments: «The Saudi Pro League offers an opportunity for the entire sector» reads its website.
The solidity of this project will be seen over time, as it is just starting out. If you look at past attempts, however, some doubts may emerge. In the last thirty years, football has become a global sport to all intents and purposes: there is no country that does not have a championship. Some of these have tried to carve out their own space in a market historically dominated by European football in which the only valid alternative has been represented by South America. The two best examples, opposite each other, are the North American league and the Chinese league. The first managed to occupy a slice of the market, albeit mostly national, while the other failed: after a decade of huge investments, and all the difficulties caused by the pandemic, it was greatly downsized.
Between the good results of the North American league and the failure of the Chinese league, it is unclear where the Saudi Pro League will position itself. First of all, it must begin: it will do so on August 11, and then end in May next year. The calendar for the European championships will therefore follow, as it was decided to do eleven years ago, bringing forward the start of the season by three months, which had been expected until then in October.
18 teams, 13 cities
Thirteen cities are represented in the Saudi Pro League which starts in August. The one with the most teams is the capital, Riyadh, which has four: Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Riyadh and Al-Shabab. Then there are Jeddah, a port city facing the Red Sea which is home to Al-Ahli and Al-Ittihad, and the lesser known Buraidah, where Al-Raed and Al-Taawoun are based. In the other best-known city in the country, Mecca, Al-Wehda plays instead. Between the country’s northernmost club (Al-Tai) and the southernmost club (Al-Okhdood) are 1,564 kilometers apart.
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Compared to last year, the number of participating teams in the Saudi Pro League has been increased from 16 to 18. At the end of last season, four teams were promoted from the second division, and from now on there will be only two relegations.
The 4 “flagship” teams
Of the 18 teams in the league, four have been chosen as “promotional vehicles” for Saudi football, for historical and merit-related reasons. Jeddah’s Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli, Riyadh’s Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal are the most successful and most popular teams in the country, and for this reason last June they became state-owned through the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the national sovereign wealth fund as well as one of the richest in the world thanks to the enormous proceeds derived from oil exports.
In recent weeks, when we read that a player has been bought by a Saudi team, it is most likely one of these four. After symbolically kicking off large investments by buying Cristiano Ronaldo, Al-Nassr took on all the international players they could, including Marcelo Brozovic from Inter and Sadio Mané from Bayern Munich. In Riyadh’s other team, Al-Hilal, two players who are well known in Italy ended up instead: Kalidou Koulibaly, a former Napoli defender then bought by Chelsea, and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic from Lazio.
Centralized purchasing
The many signings made so far by Saudi teams have been coordinated, if not managed directly, by the Player Acquisition Center of Excellence (PACE). It is an office that the championship has set up to centralize all transfers from abroad and provide clubs with the best possible assistance “to guarantee a dynamic, young and sustainable future”, as stated on the website. In practice, the investments are distributed from above according to the development plans of the championship and the teams do not act individually in the market as happens elsewhere.
PACE is therefore a tool that takes care of the interests and the direction that you want to give to the championship, eliminating or at least limiting the individual initiatives of the teams to optimize investments. A European football professional was hired to coordinate it: the former Nigerian footballer Michael Emenalo, technical director of Chelsea for almost a decade.
The rules on foreign players
From 2022, each Saudi Pro League team can register eight foreign players per season and call up a maximum of seven for league matches. Nonetheless, clubs can keep redundant foreigners in their squad. So far seven out of eighteen teams have filled all the spaces available for foreigners, and therefore will not buy more if they do not first sell some. Al-Hilal, for example, will have to exclude a foreigner from their registration lists if they want to sign Marco Verratti from Paris Saint-Germain, as they appear to be doing these days.
Out of the four most competitive clubs, Al-Ettifaq have stood out for their British investment. He hired ex-Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard as manager, and to bolster the squad he brought on another ex-Liverpool captain, Jordan Henderson. Among his purchases there is also a Scotsman, Jack Hendry, who last season played for six months in the Cremona area.
Plans for local footballers
Even before investing heavily in foreign players, Saudi Arabia had made itself known for some singular initiatives with which it had tried to improve the level of its movement. In view of the last World Cup in Qatar, for example, the Federation had suspended the championship in mid-October, after the first eight matches played, to allow the national team to meet twenty days before the group opponents, who instead would only meet a few days before the start of the tournament.
Saudi Arabia also failed to make it past the group stage in Qatar, but their improved fitness is believed to have played a role in their surprising opening win against then world champions Argentina.
Even four years earlier, Saudi Arabia had tried to make up for its football shortcomings by resorting to alternative methods. With a view to returning to the World Cup after a twelve-year absence, the country had sent nine of its best players to nine Spanish first and second division clubs to test them in a more competitive environment and get them used to those levels.
Now that the Saudi teams have been enriched with great players from Europe and South America, the league will try to accelerate the growth path of local players by lowering the age limit from 18 to 16 for being able to play among professionals. From 2025, teams will also be obliged to have at least ten players, not necessarily Saudis, under the age of twenty-two.
Who coaches these teams
The last Saudis to coach in their domestic league were replaced last year. Since then all the coaches have been foreigners, six of whom are Portuguese who were recently brought to the country thanks to the close relationship between the championship managers and Jorge Mendes, considered the most influential sports agent in the world, as well as historic agent of Cristiano Ronaldo and José Mourinho. There aren’t any Italians yet.
The stated goals
The Saudi Pro League, as stated on its website, wants to become one of the top ten football leagues in the world and ensure long-term growth by supporting it not only with the government budget at its disposal, but also through the increase in commercial revenues , especially those deriving from television rights, which have so far guaranteed little and already this season will begin to increase, given the curiosity.
– Read also: The last country in the world without a national football team
2023-08-01 14:38:01
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