Cristiano Ronaldo was the first last December. But what then seemed an eccentricity has become a worrying reality. Saudi Arabia convinced the Portuguese with the biggest contract in history. 200 million caused the man from Madeira to pack his bags without looking back to wear the Al-Nassr shirt. Then they tried it with Messi, who could have received an offer of 500 million a year. Benzema did accept and signed for Al-Ittihad in exchange for 100 million. Like N’Golo Kanté or Rubén Neves. The next one could be Koulibaly, or Ziyech, or Morata. Or Modric. The offensive is total. The threat, more serious than it seems. This summer Saudi Arabia will try to bring as much talent as possible to their league and they don’t care how much it costs them.
With the will to wash its international image and the desire to be a football reference in Asia, the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Fund designed a plan to double the value of its league with the last four Ballon d’Ors: Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and Leo Messi. At the moment, they have already got two of them, but they have lost one. His strategy consists of a huge injection of public money in the salaries of great footballers. The sovereign fund has assumed 75% of the shares of the four biggest teams in the country and this year it hopes to sign three stars for each one.
At first they were only European clubs, the last being Newcastle, then big stars, coaches and now the novelty is that any footballer is sensitive to receiving an offer. “We are only at the beginning,” warns Hafez Al-Medlej, head of the AFC Marketing Committee and former member of the Executive Office of the Asian Football Confederation. “From now on, all transferable footballers will be a target for Saudi clubs. China’s experience has nothing to do with ours, it was purely marketing. Soccer is not very popular there. In Arabia we have a state project and it will not be limited to four great teams, but to all of them. Because the passion of the Saudis for soccer knows no limits, ”he explained a few days ago in an interview with Koura.
“We don’t sign players who are finished. Al Hilal will sign Ruben Neves, who is 26 years old and whom Barcelona wanted. And Benzema arrived at Al Ittihad after winning the Ballon d’Or at Real Madrid. We hope that Bernardo Silva, from Manchester City, will arrive and we will start working on the signing of Mohamed Salah ”, he declared.
Since time immemorial there have been leagues that have seduced the best footballers at the end of their careers. Whether it was for economic or family reasons, or simply in search of anonymity. The US was for years, that’s how they recruited Pelé. And in recent times that trend has shifted to Asia. China and Japan tried. Also Emirates. But it was Qatar, with the organization of the World Cup, the one that definitively put the long teeth to the Saudis, but they have much more money (the GDP of Saudi Arabia, in 2022, is above one trillion dollars and that of Qatar remains in 225,000 million).
In its objective to become a reference, the country of the Persian Gulf will bid for the 2030 World Cup. If they fail, do not hesitate, they will go for the 2034 one. And so on until they achieve it.
