The Saudi Pro League is quickly becoming one of the most talked about divisions in football. A league most fans had very little knowledge of before Cristiano Ronaldo signed for Al-Nassr FC last season, now the competition is a worldwide talking point.
With focus shifting towards the Western Asian state, The Sportsman offers the answers to some of the most commonly asked questions surrounding the Saudi Pro League.
How many foreign players can SPL teams register?
With so many of Europe’s premier talents moving to the league, or being linked with transfers, is there a tipping point coming? Well, yes. But teams will have to go some way to get there.
Saudi sides can register eight foreign players, up from seven as the Kingdom looks to be more welcoming to elite players. The Chinese Super League was an expensive, star-studded folly that the SPL is often compared to. After initially favouring A-list players, they reneged on such an approach when they feared for the progress of domestic players. The problem being that once fans had got used to big names from abroad, the gloss of watching their own homegrown prospects was non-existent.
This project is starting off by introducing Champions League stars by the truckload. Any move back to a Saudi-led league will surely turn fans off.
How’s Cristiano Ronaldo getting on?
The lit match that ignited interest in this once-obscure division, just how is ‘CR7’ taking to life at Al-Nassr? Taken on raw numbers, which is the way the 38-year-old’s sympathisers like to judge him, he’s excelling. 14 goals in 16 league appearances is a tidy return for Ronaldo.
Teammate Anderson Talisca notched 20 goals in 23 league appearances last term while the likes of Odion Ighalo bagged 19 goals in 26 games. Ronaldo is doing well but he isn’t excelling. The Al-Nassr captain missed out on Team of the Year while his club finished in second behind Al-Ittihad.
While commercially he remains the biggest asset in the league, it will be interesting to see how Ronaldo adjusts to a situation where he arguably isn’t the best player in the league. Which brings us nicely onto our next topic.
Why are so many big name players going to Saudi?
After Ronaldo, reigning Ballon d’Or holder Karim Benzema was the next top talent to make the switch, joining Al-Ittihad. While he has a lot left in the tank, the fact he’s 35 and was a free agent meant the deal made sense.
A very public chase for Lionel Messi made sense too, with the Argentine leaving Paris Saint-Germain and talks with Barcelona stalling. He somewhat surprisingly opted for the MLS and Inter Miami, but there was still logic behind the SPL’s approach.
Other names like N’golo Kante, a shade younger at 32 but starting to fade due to injury, made sense too. But Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Ruben Neves being linked felt like a tipping point. 26 years old and the subject of links with Barcelona and Manchester United among others, why would a player in demand and at his peak go to what is viewed as a retirement league?
But go he will, with a deal done for the Portugal international to join Al Hilal. He won’t be the last player in their prime to go either. Chelsea’s 22-year-old wide man Callum Hudson-Odoi is also reportedly in talks to move to the league. He’s far from the only Stamford Bridge star set to take that road this season. Which begs the question…
What’s with Chelsea and the Saudi Pro League?
You may have noticed an unfolding conspiracy theory on social media relating to Chelsea and the Saudi Public Investment Fund. The PIF owns the “big four” SPL teams, Al-Nassr, Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad, and Al-Ahli. They have also invested with Clearlake Capital, the co-owners of Chelsea.
Kante, Hudson-Odoi, Hakim Ziyech, Kalidou Koulibaly and Edouard Mendy are all either joining teams in the league or close to doing so, surely this isn’t fair? Are the PIF propping up Chelsea by helping them shift players from their mammoth wage bill?
The PIF’s involvement in Clearlake is as an investment fund rather than owning company stock. They have no financial interest in Chelsea and an opposing interest in Newcastle United, a club they own outright. If this was merely about some sort of player-laundering arrangement then they’d be doing it with their own club, not one they have only a vague connection to.
Rather, Chelsea need to sell players and the Saudi Pro League is buying players. It’s simple supply and demand. Throw in the fact that Kante was actually out of contract anyway and Chelsea had no input in his destination and you realise the link is more circumstantial than anything.
Wait, the PIF owns the “big four” clubs?
Yes they do. In the sort of arrangement that would be anathema to most European football fans, the government arm does own the biggest teams in the nation. But such arrangements are far less frowned upon elsewhere. The MLS owns its own clubs for example, with each then operated by investors. The PIF is essentially working within a scaled-down version of that framework.
Where the issue comes in is that the rich could get richer while the traditionally-middling clubs have little room for growth. What hope do the teams outside the government remit have when the big boys are only going to get bigger? In among the glamour signings and increased investment, this could actually be the real make-or-break story of this growing league.
Is the Saudi Pro League going anywhere?
Who knows? The Chinese Super League tried this in the previous decade. Hulk, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Javier Mascherano were among the stars to flock to the Middle East. But chiefs got cold feet and implemented rules to favour homegrown talent while players grew tired of the unchallenging standards.
It is too early to tell if the Saudi Pro League will go the same way. They’ve succeeded when it comes to making an early splash, with the league being all anyone can talk about during the summer transfer window. But what will the likes of Neves and Benzema think in six months time? Will Ronaldo stick around to play second fiddle? Will fans accept the slow integration of more Saudi talent or will it kill the league for star-hungry fans?
These fast-growing, ground-up experiments rarely work. The Chinese Super League is still going but few care, while the likes of the star-studded, Pele-featuring NASL are confined to the “On This Day” vaults. There’s a slim chance we’re all sat here in ten years remembering the watershed moment that Benzema made the Saudi Pro League a world power. Or more likely, you’ll be reading a “Remember when the Saudi Pro League tried to take over the world?” article.
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