What Are Saudi Arabia’s Big Football Plans?
Almost every day there is a new rumour of a star soccer player being linked to a club from Saudi Arabia. Last winter, the great Cristiano Ronaldo left for the country, after which star players such as Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kanté made the switch in recent weeks. The question now is not whether players are leaving for Saudi Arabia, but how many are still going. The main motivation for these transfers is of course money, but what else do we know about Saudi Arabia’s football league?
Big Future Plans
It has been a growing phenomenon for years, ending your career in ‘the sandbox’. A big reason is that there is a lot of money to be made. For example, football players first often left for Qatar, Abu Dhabi and China was also a good place to farm, but now also to Saudi Arabia. They offer much more money and this attracts real football stars.
But why does Saudi Arabia want this so badly? Well, it is a football country! It has about 36 million people and a lot of those people watch football every week. For example, they are very interested in the Premier League, but their own competition is also important. And whether the Saudi Arabians themselves can play football well. Last World Cup in Qatar they managed to surprise the whole world by winning against Argentina. This made them the only country to beat the Argentines in the final tournament.
However, the country also wants to gain more prestige with their competition. Not only the residents want this, but also Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud. Saudi Arabia must become at the same level as the European sub-top. The crown prince has a special project for this: Saudi Vision 2030. With this, the Asian country is trying to focus on a future without oil income. How are they going to bring all the football players to the competition? The goal was also to organize the 2030 World Cup, but last week it was announced that the country was withdrawing from that battle.
All Football Stars Are in Saudi Arabia
It was recently announced that Kalidou Koulibaly, Rúben Neves and most likely Hakim Ziyech will temporarily stop their European ambitions. Ziyech will shine at Al-Nassr alongside Cristiano Ronaldo. However, the all-time top goalscorer of the Champions League last winter was not the first top footballer to leave Europe for the money in Saudi Arabia. Last year we also saw three-time Europa League winner Éver Banega and the always-scoring Moroccan striker Abderrazak Hamdallah on the Arab fields. Luiz Gustavo, Anderson Souza Conceição, aka Talisca, Adam Maher, Luciano Vietto, David Ospina and Cristian Tello also shone in the oil state last year.
The top transfers follow each other in rapid succession, but years ago many footballers were persuaded to shine in Saudi Arabia. Paulinho, Nordin Amrabat, Ola John, Bafétimbi Gomes, Marko Marin, Youness Mokhtar and many others have succumbed to the big money before. We are curious to see which stars we will see moving towards the Middle East in the future.
Who’s Next?
As you can see, the last period witnessed the transfer of many talented players from the European leagues to the Saudi League. However, the stream of Saudi money has not yet dried up and they still have ambitions to include the biggest names in the world of sports to be the strongest league in the world and then attract advertising and sponsorship funds and host major sporting events. Saudi Arabia is now jealous of its small neighbour Qatar, which dazzled the world by organizing the last World Cup, and it also sees itself as better than France, which gives its nationality to African footballers for its national team.
All of this raises questions about who are the next players we could see in the Saudi League soon! Although no one knows, if you have strong expectations about the professional European players we are likely to see in the Saudi League soon, you can bet on your expectation in Betfinal. The site offers its new visitors a special welcome bonus, and since it is an Arab sports betting site, it focuses particularly on the Saudi League, which is the strongest in the Middle East. In addition, customers of the site receive special treatment, customer service available around the clock, and multiple means of communication. In addition, the site sends its customers the latest news of the Saudi League, as well as offers free live streams of the matches.
The Saudi State Fund Role
The Saudi State Fund (PIF) plays a major role in this. They have become majority shareholders in four major clubs. One of those clubs is Al-Nassr, the club of Cristiano Ronaldo. They are 75 percent owned by the PIF and in this way, they want to attract more greats to the competition. After all, they can offer a lot of money. And does the name PIF sound familiar? English Newcastle United is also owned by the Saudi state fund!
In any case, it’s not the fans’ fault. They support their favourite club and can go crazy after a victory. We also saw this with the victory of the national team against Argentina. It was celebrated so grandly that the day of the race has even been declared a national holiday. So football lives not only with the government but also with the folks.