Can Saudi Arabia Buy Football?

you've probably noticed over the past

couple of weeks that Saudi Arabia is

throwing a lot of money at football even

prior to recent weeks the kingdom

acquired 80 percent of Newcastle United

has signaled an intention to house the

FIFA World Cup and made Cristiano

Ronaldo the highest paid player in the

entire history of the sport but now

things have got really crazy Angolo

kante and Karen Benzema have joined

alityhad on contracts reported to worth

100 and 200 million euros a season

Lionel Messi was offered double that

amount 400 million euros to join

al-hilal and several other superstars

look likely to follow in Ronaldo kante

and benzema's footsteps after the pif

which is Saudi Arabia's Sovereign wealth

fund which also owns 80 percent of

Newcastle United recently acquired

majority stakes in Saudi Arabia's four

best supported clubs neither Saudi

wealth nor in just in sports or football

or anything new indeed I made a video on

exactly that topic a little over 18

months ago after Wes from midfielder

Matthias Pereira chose to join al-hilal

ahead of West Ham and other Premier

League offers but this is investment on

an entirely different scale to put it

into some perspective the 200 million

euros a season that Saudi Arabia will

pay Karen Benzema is over twice as much

as any football in Europe has ever been

paid by their clubs alone it is more

than the entire annual budgets of seven

different Premier League clubs and by

far the world's highest spending

Division and it is the same as the

entire salary cap of 208.2 million

dollars set for every NFL team in the

2022 season that's right Karen Benzema

alone is paid as much as any NFL team at

Real Madrid by contrast Benzema was paid

around a poultry 12 million euros a

season after tax and if using after tax

figures seems like an unfair comparison

don't forget that there is no personal

income tax in Saudi Arabia so a salary

of 200 million euros is just that

Messi's contracts offer meanwhile whilst

it was rejected would have been not just

by far the most lucrative in the entire

history of world sports but would

actually have been worth more each

season than the amount that Saudi Arabia

paid to buy Newcastle United in

2021. clearly then this is quite a big

deal but the question remains just how

big is this a fleeting phenomenon akin

to the nasl in the 1970s a doomed

projects like the Chinese Super League

during the 2010s or the reshaping of the

global football landscape which will see

the Saudi pro league Challenge and

perhaps even eclipse the likes of the

Premier League and the

UEFA Champions League and whatever the

outcome why is this happening why has

the intensity of spending ramped up so

extremely over such a short period of

time and what is the end game in all of

this for Saudi Arabia themselves well

sit back relax and join me on a journey

to the birthplace of Islam and the

largest country in western Asia where 95

of land is Desert witchcraft is still a

crime and descent can be deadly as I

attempt to answer all of those questions

and more in the same week that Alexi had

unveiled the signing of the reigning

Ballon d'Or winner al-hilal offered

Lionel Messi roughly a billion dollars

over two seasons and Saudi Arabia's

three biggest clubs were taken into

statens the PGA Tour merged with its

saudi-backed rival live golf in what was

viewed by many as being a capitulation

by PGA and a huge win for Saudi Arabia

and their sporting expansion that's

inevitably led to comparisons between

Saudi Arabia's realized influence in

golf and their intention to make similar

inroads in football with some people

speculating that it's only a matter of

time before football's current authority

figures and organizations would Buckle

in a similar fashion football and golf

are entirely different ball games though

quite literally of course and I don't

just mean in the sense that the ball is

much bigger in football and it is a bit

more difficult to become an all-time

great on a diet consisting solely of

chicken and waffles football is by far

the most popular sport on the planet and

it has long been very hierarchical for

more than a century Europe and South

America have dominated almost every

aspect of the sport despite its

ever-expanding interest and popularity

throughout other parts of the globe no

team from outside of Europe or South

America has ever won the FIFA World Cup

or even reached a World Cup final nor

has any non-european or South American

team ever won the much less prestigious

FIFA Club World Cup while South American

football remains a powerhouse on the

international stage with Argentina

recently haven't become the first

non-european national team to win the

World Cup in 20 years its Club Gamers

struggle to keep Pace financially with

Europe's leading leagues particularly

since the 1980s and 90s it's now more

than 90 years since the South American

Club last signed a player for a world

record-breaking fee almost all of the

con confidence bass players eventually

play their domestic football in Europe

and that is reflected in no South

American Club even having won the club

World Cup for more than a decade within

a European context there has been a

further concentration of power in the

hands of initially just a few leagues

and increasingly now just the Premier

League and about five other clubs but

broadly speaking the English Spanish

German and Italian leagues have been on

top for the best part of 50 years during

that time and even before it there have

been several attempts to disrupt that

settlement the first and arguably still

the most notable came in Colombia during

the late 1940s and early 1950s when the

country capitalized upon a footballer's

strike in Argentina and the expulsion

from FIFA to sign some of the world's

best players without paying any transfer

fees because the campionato professional

had been in spelled from FIFA they

didn't have to abide by any of the rules

and regulations that governed other

football leagues and they soon set about

delivering suitcases full of cash to

some of the most high profile players

from Argentina Brazil Uruguay and even

Europe Alfredo de Stefano who was

arguably the best player on the planet

at the time spent four years starring

for millinarios meanwhile possibly

England's greatest ever Defender Neil

Franklin lasted just six weeks at

milanaris's Bogota Rivals independiente

Santa Fe but that was still enough to

stop him from Ever playing for England

or in the first division ever again the

whole thing went up in a giant ball of

flames in the space of about five years

but that didn't stop the United States

from pursuing a similar strategy of wild

spending and Rapid expansion during the

1970s the signing of Palais by New York

Cosmos in 1975 joined by the likes of

Franz beckenbauer Johan Cruyff gerd

Muller and George best amongst others

was supposed to be the Catalyst for

transforming the North American soccer

league into the biggest football league

on the planet and soccer into the most

popular sport in the United States of

America by 1984 the nasal had collapsed

under the weight of enormous debts the

MLS founded in 1996 with much stricter

Financial regulations to prevent it from

meeting a similar fate loosened those

regulations to bring a 32 year old David

Beckham to Los Angeles in 2009 followed

by the likes of Thierry Henry Kaka and

most recently of course Lionel Messi the

gradual progress of Major League Soccer

has been less dramatic than the nasl or

the El Dorado era of Colombian football

but in signing predominantly older

players on big money in the latter

stages of their careers the comparisons

with Saudi Arabia strategy Still Remains

strong far less gradual and more

dramatic however is the comparison that

you will hear most often about Saudi

Arabia's recent investments in football

and that is with China during the

mid-2010s the most populated Nation on

Earth and a global superpower alongside

the United States China's president for

Life Xi Jinping who is himself actually

quite a big football fan decided that

the nation's long-term underachievements

in football was an issue that the state

ought to address and when she and the

CCP want something addressed in China it

tends to get addressed almost overnight

Chinese money flooded into football both

at home and abroad the likes of West

Brom wolves AC Milan Inter Milan and

Granada were all taken over by Chinese

businesses or billionaires and a Chinese

Consortium even acquired a 13 stake in

the the city football Group which owns

12 football clubs including Manchester

City Guangzhou Honda made Dario conquer

an uncapped Argentine who most football

fans had never even heard of the third

highest paid player on the planet

Shanghai Shanghai were believed to have

made Carlos Tevez briefly the highest

paid player in the world and in the 2017

winter transfer window the Chinese Super

League leapfrogged the Premier League as

the world's highest spending division

this was serious Investments and all

parts of our plan to establish China

initially as one of the leading

footballing nations in Asia reaching the

level of South Korea and Japan by 2013

and to have one of the best men's and

women's national teams by 2050 capable

of hosting and winning the FIFA World

Cup the very visible investment in the

likes of Oscar tavez and European Club

ownership was twined with less visible

but equal radical investments in

domestic infrastructure and coaching it

took just two or three years basically

between 2016 to 2018 for that rapid

investment to be met with equally sudden

divestment as she and the CCP

implemented salary caps limits on the

number of foreign players and instructed

the same Chinese businesses and

billionaires who had invested in

football under their instructions to

stop doing so and even to sell their

foreign clubs due to concerns

surrounding Capital flight a lack of

tangible results and new priorities now

the Chinese super league has all but

collapsed with several of the League's

highest spending clubs either having

been relegated or outright dissolved and

only a handful of European teams are

still Chinese owned there are lots of

striking similarities between China and

Saudi Arabia's investments in football

both were shocking and unprecedented

they included investment both at home

and abroad and they both had the

long-term aim not just of bringing some

very famous footballers to their

countries but also of developing

competitive teams leagues and perhaps

most notably hosting the FIFA World Cup

both were also the results of decisions

taken by dictators of course or at the

very least unelected governments and

ruling royal families but it's also

there that you will find some key

differences I have seen it said

repeatedly in the athletic over the past

week that the big difference between

China and Saudi Arabia is that the

Chinese aren't passionate about football

I don't think that's true there were

several Chinese teams capable of

attracting crowds of upwards of 50 000

funds for their home games and a

distinct football culture which predated

that massive investment Saudi Arabia is

more passionate about football than

China as a whole or on a per capita

basis No Doubt out but in absolute

numbers there are inevitably a great

many more passionate football fans in

China than there are in Saudi Arabia or

just about anywhere else for that matter

the real difference between Saudi Arabia

and China's approaches to football is in

terms of how the two countries are run

and what their priorities are ultimately

football just wasn't that much of a

priority for China or at least it wasn't

enough of a priority that she and the

CCP felt that the Circa

2016-17 Investments could be justified

when trying to figure out whether Saudi

Arabia will reach a similar conclusion

in just a few years time it's important

to consider why they are doing this at

all on that front there are a few

different theories the most talked about

is sports washing a term which has been

popularized over the past decade but is

still often misunderstood and is

typically used within this context to

refer to the idea that if if the first

thing that foreigners think of when they

think of Saudi Arabia is either

Cristiano Ronaldo or Karen Benzema or

football more broadly instead of let's

say a genocide in Yemen public

beheadings or the chopping up of

journalists the kingdom will have

secured a PR win the extent to which

this is Saudi Arabia and the Crown

Prince Mohammed bin Salman's main aim

when it comes to football is at times I

think a little overblown though it is

certainly true that MBS has been Keen to

embellish the idea of him being some

great liberalizer in the west whilst

implementing brutal crackdowns at home

and Sport can play a role in softening

the image that foreigners have of both

him and Saudi Arabia more broadly more

important perhaps is the routinely

overlooked efforts to sportswash if you

want to use that word at home rather

than abroad Saudi Arabia is an absolute

monarchy there are no political parties

unions or other forms of permitted

political organization the house of Saud

restricts almost all political rights

and civil liberties and criticisms of

the regime can result in torture

imprisonments or death during the 2011

Arab Spring a young boy named murtigi

kasary took part in protests in Saudi

Arabia allegedly having shouted the

people demand human rights into a mega

found down a Dusty side street in one of

Saudi Arabia's Eastern provinces kesari

was arrested Accused by the Saudi

government of having been part of a

terror group and of sowing sedition and

allegedly tortured into providing a

false confession kesari was just 10

years old at the time of the protests

and 13 years old when he was arrested

making him one of the world's youngest

political prisoners in 2018 when caseri

turned 18 years old Saudi prosecutors

indicated that they will be seeking the

death penalty T despite K series age at

the time of his alleged offenses

accusing him of having thrown Molotov

cocktails at a police station after his

brother had been killed at a protest

kesari's case is Not Unusual last year

Saudi Arabia executed 81 people in a

single day many of whom were also

believed to have been government critics

accused of being terrorists by the Saudi

government and then tortured into giving

false confessions but whilst MBS and the

Saudi State can pick off tens hundreds

and perhaps even thousands of dissenting

voices as they have done for Generations

now that situation becomes increasingly

untenable once you get into the tens or

hundreds of thousands Saudi Arabia has a

young population the average age is just

below 31 about 70 percent of the

population are under the age of 35 and

it is young people who have the greatest

appetite a change whilst young people

might be more likely to oppose the

extreme social and religious

conservatism that marks Saudi Arabia out

as one of the most conservative

countries in the world they're also

often fanatical about football keenes to

avoid future unrest and challenges to

their Authority the house of Saud

therefore is deploying their characters

well as the stick on the one hand if you

protest or voice any dissent be prepared

for the most brutal repression

imaginable but on the other hand if you

just want to see some of the best

footballers in the world playing in

Saudi Arabia we could also make that

happen of course football isn't the only

aspect of that strategy or even the most

important one and we don't have time to

get into some of the others but it is

still significant equally important

perhaps is just the Practical

implications of getting young people

more interested in sport and hopefully

more active as a consequence about 70

percent of Saudi Arabia's population may

be under the age of 35 but roughly 60

percent of the population is either

overweight or obese that has significant

ramifications in terms of productivity

in healthcare in a country where the

state provides Universal Health Care and

addressing weight and inactivity related

Health Care issues could save the state

of Fortune in the long run in 2020 Saudi

Arabia's spending on Health Care totaled

49.1 billion dollars under current

trends that is predicted to rise to 77.1

billion dollars by just 2027.

sport is also seen as one of the ways in

which Saudi Arabia can diversify its

economy away from a dependence on oil as

part of the country's Saudi Vision 2030

framework which has been the primary

motivation for the rapid expansion of

the pif's Investments under MBS so far

progress on that front has been slow

despite the size of Saudi Arabia's

Sovereign wealth fight there are a

number of misconceptions more broadly

about Saudi Arabia's economy Saudi

Arabia isn't actually that rich I mean

it is but it also kind of isn't there

are various ways of measuring the

economic strength or output of a country

but by nominal GDP which is among the

most common methods Saudi Arabia's

economy is a little bit smaller than the

Netherlands about half the size of

Russia or Canada's roughly a third of

the size of the United Kingdoms and four

percent of the size of the United States

sure you might say but Saudi Arabia is

only Homes at 35 million people which is

true but Saudi Arabia ranks even lower

in terms of GDP per capita Saudi Arabia

ranks 38th in the world by that metric

below Slovenia Taiwan and Estonia all

right Alfie I hear you say but what

about Saudi Arabia's massive Sovereign

wealth fund that we keep hearing about

the pif with its 620 billion dollars in

assets under management that is an

important point and one that I would

expect from such an intelligence

audience but it is still less than the

Sovereign wealth funds of Abu Dhabi

Kuwait China and the largest of them all

norways which is worth 1.4 trillion

dollars or in other words over twice as

much as Saudi Arabia's you heard me

right twice as much if they wanted to

Norway could use its Sovereign wealth

fund to say take over the country's four

biggest clubs pump them full of cash and

outbid Saudi Arabia for Ronaldo Benzema

and kante as a nation of just 5 million

people but they're too busy wasting it

on things like a functioning Healthcare

System outstanding public transportation

and a large social safety net the

short-sighted buffoons they could have

signed Sergio busquets instead none of

this is to say that Saudi Arabia doesn't

have the resources to shake up World

football very clearly they do but the

idea that they are uniquely rich or have

deeper Pockets than any other country on

earth is simply misplaced if China had

wanted to commit to their football

project and was as committed as Saudi

Arabia they could have outbid them for

every Club player and competition until

the end of time this is a question of

priorities not wealth in terms of the

likelihood of success even if Saudi

Arabia yeah is in it for the long haul

and remains extremely committed unlike

China they still face significant

challenges in terms of prestige

desirability and domestic standards in

every previous attempt of the silk we

have seen just how difficult it is to

completely reshape the landscape of

football the nas Sal and Chinese Super

League attracted top players but many of

them were nearing the end of their

careers had already secured their

legacies with their more prestigious

competitions and were let's be honest

motivated by one last massive payday so

far the same is true of Saudi Arabia's

investments in football Cristiano

Ronaldo is 38 Karen benzemar is 35 and

whilst Angolo kante is the youngest of

the trio of 32 he has had awful injury

problems this season has only played

about seven games and hasn't quite been

the same player over the last couple of

Seasons if this was killing

Holland and Jude Bellingham that we were

talking about it would be an entirely

different conversation but would any of

those players move to Saudi Arabia at

this stage of their careers even if they

were offered enough money to form their

own private militias personally I have

my doubts even Harry Kane who will turn

30 this summer and is already as club

and country's all-time record goalscorer

if he was offered five times as much to

play for al-hilal next season as he was

to play for let's say Manchester United

or Real Madrid my suspicion is that he

would turn it down and for very obvious

reasons the profile of the Saudi league

is likely to rise along with the caliber

of the players and teams within it but

the former will be more gradual and no

point during the careers of the players

currently moving to Saudi Arabia will

winning the Saudi pro league be

considered on par with winning La Liga

robber Premier League nor the AFC

Champions League be considered as

prestigious as the UEFA Champions League

Oscar became stupendously Rich by

joining Shanghai sipg in 2015 but he

never played for Brazil again most

people haven't seen him play for the

last eight years and many of you

probably forgot that he even existed

inevitably a lot of players despite the

financial incentives will consider that

a price too great especially when they

are already unfathomably rich and can

earn more money than they could ever

spend playing in Europe or even if they

are that way inclined they can just wait

until they're into their 30s to make

that move and to earn those kinds of

sums combine that with the fact that

plenty of players will find the

prospects of living in Saudi Arabia

whether you agree with them or not less

desirable than living in Europe or North

America for example and you end up just

as the Chinese Super League clubs found

having to pay Wild over the odds in

order to convince players to join your

clubs they are sometimes not all that

committed because the finances of the

deal were that only motivation and it is

extremely difficult to attract the very

best players in their early years or

even at the peak of their powers the

reason the Premier League is the most

watched league in the world isn't just

because it has the best teams or the

best players though that is arguably now

the case even when Spanish clubs

dominated Europe and star players

inevitably ended up joining either Real

Madrid or Barcelona the Premier League

was still the most watched and the most

lucrative league in the world likewise

despite signing some big name players

few people outside of China started

watching the Chinese Super League just

because of Tevez Oscar or Hulk Cristiano

Ronaldo and Karen Benzema are of course

on a whole different scale in terms of

their profile to any players recruited

by the Chinese Super league and they

will bring with them individual eyeballs

but history shows us that top heavy

leagues tend to come crashing down

watching Javi even in the Autumn of his

career strutting around the Qatar Styles

League was like watching pedry if you

just plonked him into the vanarama

national league North in China the

golfing class between domestic and

overseas players was so Stark that for

anyone who did actually watch it it was

hard to take too seriously Saudi Arabia

isn't China in football terms they beat

Argentina at the World Cup despite

finishing bottom of their group but the

Saudi pro league is ranked outside of

the world's top 50 leagues below the

Scottish Premiership the championship

and Seria B plonking Ronaldo and Benzema

are in there does not a premier league

make the Premier League's rise was

anything but organic it was a

corporatist breakaway League built on

the premise of maximizing broadcast and

media revenue and keeping that Revenue

within the Premier League rather than

Henry Distributing it throughout the

pyramid however recruitments and

Investments Rose broadly in line with

Revenue there were some exceptions like

Roman abramovich's arrival at Chelsea

and Abu Dhabi involvement at Manchester

City but it wasn't like the Premier

League broke away from the football

league in 1992 signed Marco van basten

Jean-Pierre papin and haristo stochkov

and suddenly became the most popular

league in the world overnight that has

never worked and whilst past performance

is not indicative of future results as

the famous disclaimer goes it is going

to take something pretty staggering to

end that precedent in missing out on

Lionel Messi Saudi Arabia's football

project has already hit its first rock

the idea worth 600 million euros a

season it would seem was to have

Cristiano Ronaldo at El naseer and

Lionel Messi at al-hilal who are the two

biggest clubs in Saudi Arabia's capital

city of Riyadh and already have a bitter

rivalry in order to project that rivalry

onto the world stage through the medium

of the greatest individual rivalry

within the sport in recent decades

between Messi and Ronaldo themselves

that is the reason why the four clubs to

have been taken into pif ownership are

the two biggest from Saudi Arabia's two

biggest cities Riyad and Jeddah despite

Al Ali only having one promotion from

the second tier of Saudi football this

season as the state wants to sell the

league around those four super clubs and

two Mega Derbies Messi has thrown an

early spanner in the works of those

plans and whilst al-alali will still

sign a superstar this summer of that

there is no doubt there is no one out

there other than Ronaldo who's already

playing for their Rivals with a remotely

similar profile to Messi the decision to

focus on those four clubs meanwhile has

upset a number of others non more so

than al-shabab who have finished in the

top four in each of the last three

seasons and felt as though they had

turned the traditional big four into a

big five whilst their Rivals sang Global

Superstars they just lost their own top

scorer Aaron bupenza in a 7 million

dollar move two MLS outfits FC

Cincinnati in addition to the four clubs

taken over by the pif four more will

receive significant investment from

so-called private companies namely

alcazia from Saudi aramco aldarea club

from the daraya gate developments

Authority al-ula from the Royal

commission and alsakor from neon which

is the company behind the dystopian

proposed smart city that some of you

will probably have seen none of those

teams compete in the Saudi pro league

though and given that all of those

companies are majority state-owned it is

just State ownership and state

Investments under a different name for

now most European clubs will see the

Saudi pro league as a useful opportunity

to offload older players on big wages as

was the case with the Chinese Super

League in the mid-2010s though Saudi

clubs are yet to actually pay

considerable transfer fees unlike the

Chinese Super League instead targeting

free agents countless players meanwhile

will use real or imagined offers from

Saudi clubs to bolster their pay packets

at home but fewer will actually make the

move in the case of the Chinese Super

League it was the signing of Alex

taisheyra who was Jurgen klopp's primary

targets at Liverpool at the time and was

also sought after by Chelsea that really

made European Club start to worry and

think that actually this could be some

kind of threat that threat didn't

materialize partly because tayshayra

proved to be an exception too rather

than a new rule and partly because

within a couple of years China had a

change of heart when it came to their

investments in football this Saudi pro

league will have its taste Shader moment

the will probably be a player who isn't

in their 30s and is wanted by European

super Club who turns that offer down in

a move to Saudi Arabia instead and that

will worry your obsolete overcoming the

hurdle of prestige desirability and the

sheer amount of time that it will take

to establish the Saudi pro league as a

top 10 league in the world as is Saudi

Arabia's aim let alone one that can

rival the Premier League and Champions

League that is a task that will take not

just eye-watering amounts of money but

much more than cash alone that's not to

say that it can't be done just that it

is extremely difficult and the wholesale

idea particularly on this platform that

that shift has already happened is well

a little bit Daft I have only touched on

about 60 to 70 percent of what I planned

for this video but it's already very

long and I've no doubt that you're all

sick of hearing my voice I rarely ought

to have followed in the true geordy's

footsteps instead who spent the first

two minutes of his Saudi Arabia video by

doing a gambling advert six minutes just

Googling which players had been offered

contracts by Saudi clubs and what they

were worth and going and then the last

couple of minutes saying that Saudi

Arabia will get everything that they

want because they are so powerful and no

one will watch the Premier League

anymore if the best players go to Saudi

Arabia brilliantly insightful stuff a

real gift to the YouTube Community I'm

sure that you would agree anyway I'm

sure that we'll return to this topic at

some stage and if you're not sick of my

voice I would recommend my previous

video about the structure and history of

Saudi football more broadly which I will

leave a link to at the end of this video

and in which I was just as remarkably

prescient as you have all come to expect

thank you all very much as ever for

watching hit the like button if you

enjoyed it apparently that is helpful in

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Below in the comments and make sure of

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