It all started with Cristiano signing for Al Nassr last year. Karim Benzema, the Real Madrid striker and one of the best on the planet currently, decided to move to Al-Ittihad. He is joined by N’Golo Kante who had injuries last season but is still a very decent player on the field.
Ruben Neves from Wolves had interest from different Premier League teams. Not long ago, every other Arsenal fan wanted Mikel to bring him to Emirates, he is such a decent midfielder that he will start in any of the PL team’s midfield bar City. He has moved to Al-Hilal, at the age of 26 for a 3 year contract, and Wolves are getting £47m for him. Chelsea has shifted Hakim Ziyech and Edouard Mendy is expected to leave too. There are rumours of Koulibaly, Mahrez, Aubameyang, Neymar and a bunch of others.
Is it any difference to Chinese Super League or MLS? In short, yes.
China turned out to be a retirement home, so did MLS (and even now, they are). Players who had spent their best days, were moving to MLS and CSL, to earn a big fat check. Kind of a ‘grab whatever you can coz it’s going to be over soon’ round. But what Saudi League has managed differently is that, they have attracted some of the best and in-their-prime players. Though, Ronaldo had a bad season by his standards at Old Trafford, he could have literally walked into any of the teams he wanted. Benzema is still a hot entity in world football. Heck, I would have loved Neves at Arsenal for that amount of money.
Mendy is a Champions League winner. Riyad Mahrez, Bernando Silva, Gundogan, who all just won a trebble at City, are all being linked to different Saudi teams. We even have rumours for one of our own, Thomas Partey. Much like others, Partey is still in his prime and had a brilliant season with us. He still has couple of good years left in him.
What Saudi League has done, is, attract the attractive ones (money helps) and build from there. Any other league like Indian Soccer League are low on budget, they can’t pay millions and though the playing condition is a bit of hostile, it’s not as much as Saudi Arabia here. It’s the bottom up approach for Indian Football. It’s the top down for Saudis. Hear me out, Ngolo Kante is rumoured to have a net worth of 23m euros after playing in one of the richest league, in one of the richest clubs in Chelsea and winning almost everything. He will earn whooping 100m euros in his 4 year contract at the Saudi club. 4 times his net worth!
Is it going to last?
I don’t know. Unlike China and US, they have money and they can keep doing it forever. The lot that’s reaching Saudi this year (and the next year) will decide how famous they get, and how much impact it will have on European Football. English football in particular is rooted enough, and might not have impact in terms of revenue and popularity locally, but there’s a bigger market share outside and Saudi league will compete with it. Some of the neutral fans are invested in players (Ronaldo, Messi e.g.) rather than the club they play for.
What can the English club do?
Nothing, they have opened the pandora box. From an owner, who spent half a billion in one season, and now wants to shift some players and recoup some of that money, has a buyer outside Europe. Players, who were sitting on bench, being paid a whooping 100k/week wages will earn 10x of that. It’s a win-win for the club and the players as of now. It won’t be long before the players whom the club wants to keep, will ask for a transfer for that 10x money. It won’t be long before it further inflates the market because you have to pay substantially more to keep your prized possession from moving to Saudi (and MLS has opened the gate too with Messi and Image/TV rights).
In my honest opinion, it’s worse that the European Super League. Either it will ruin the financials all over, or it will force clubs to go back to grassroot level of developing footballer and instilling in them the club identity over money.
Only positive? For every Neves, there’s a Lukaku.
You are welcome to disagree with what I feel, because I haven’t seen anything like this. I don’t know how it will turn out. I would be more interested in your opinion about why/why not it’s a good thing for football in general and English Premier League in particular.
Interesting times. I understand that Saudi Arabia want to get the WC in 2030. They are building a massive tourist zone on the Red Sea. Just as UAE diversified using oil revenues, Saudi are doing it but with even more money. If it means their human rights record improves then this improves things somewhat but it still feels a bit dodgy.
I don’t have the vision to predict how it’ll affect the PL but it seems undoubtedly inflationary and unlikely to be of benefit to fans. As an Arsenal ST holder my outlay has potentially, effectively gone up 20% with now only 3 home cup ties included on the ST, as opposed to 7, as well as a 6% rise. ‘If you want the best players, you have to pay for it’ is the message.
Will it feel better if Arsenal get a bigger fee for Partey…..probably.
It all feels distasteful though. But what can we do, fuck all I suppose!
Bob
They’ve increased ticket prices (lower tier 6% and upper 4%) but the reduction in cup credits has been knocked off the cost. So you’ll see a small increase on individual ticket costs, if we progress in the CL or FA Cup you can opt out but even if you buy the tickets you’re not looking at a 20% increase.
Of course the chances of progressing under Arteta?
Bob
The Saudi League will not threaten the PL – the reason the PL is so successful is down to you, me and the other hundreds of thousands who turn up to matches every week. The atmosphere at the grounds, the passion, history and rivalry is something they’ll never match.
Marc,
True. It would be just harder to keep the superstars because they will be paid millions more…
They can pay more, they can’t create the culture.
Not sure about that Marc, more than likely the cup ties will be cat A games so minimum £70 a pop so if 4 cup ties that’ll be £280 as well as the 6%. My St without the credits fromlast season would gave Neón £970 so if you do the maths….. painful increase!
Bob
To my mind, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Israel and other monied pariah states are not in interested in improving human rights. Grand pricks and football does not a fair society make. What they’re solely interested in is improving their image, not their actual system.
There are still bitter disagreements in Qatar involving construction and security staff who are still unpaid. Dead and injured workers have not been repatriated and the shitstorm goes on. They and Putin and his murderous cabal were not awarded these tournaments as an incentive/gateway to improve – it was because of the fucking huge brown envelopes that Platini, Blatter and Rogge were paid to pervert their organisations’ values.
The Saudi league can go and fuck itself and Ronaldo can kiss my scabby arse. Our own PL is corrupt as fuck but these homicidal theocratic bastards make Richards Scudamore and Masters and all those other money grubbing cunts look like boy scouts.
These are the top 5 five football leagues in terms of sincerity of product, size, importance and meaning to supporters (in order).
Argentina
Brazil
Germany
Ingerland
Italy
Hotly pursued by Japan, Spain, Mexico, Egypt, Poland and France.
I’d rather watch Saudi Arabia’s real national sport on TV than their grubby dalliance with football ie, beheading foreigners and dissidents. At least that’s something they really like along with camel racing and falconry.
There is no way televised football in that country will lead to a more civilised, egalitarian and improved society. Bob – are you in agent provocateur mode mon ami?
ultimately this is far more about tv/streaming rights, as the turnstile gig will always have pre-determined monetary ceiling…so until the Saudi’s invest heavily enough in a combination of established players and blue chip prospects they will never generate enough interest beyond their respective borders…now the fact that they seem to have a bottomless pit of money to do so, is a bit disconcerting, but they don’t appear to have the patience required to do things the right way…just look at LIV golf…btw anyone who doesn’t think the Super League wasn’t actually being financed by the Saudis, through back channels of course, should get their head examined
Bob and Marc
Now that the Southampton Scummers have been relegated, I’m sure that Rishi Sunak, one of the main architects of Britain’s economic collapse, will proclaiming his new love of Arsenal Hotspurs and will be joining you as ST holders at the Emirates. Give the twat a slap on my behalf – please!
Starmer already is a Gooner of course (Marc – he’s as right wing as you are so you’d get on well. 😉). He and I used to go to games together in the 90s.
TRVL
People all over the world watch the PL because of the atmosphere at the grounds – that was there before the superstars who used to move to Italy or Spain. Why did Sky add crowd sounds to matches during lockdown?
Saudi will never manage that when the most common chant is “Allah Akbar”. It might be holy and revered but it can’t beat “the referee’s a wanker” when it comes to making an atmosphere for TV fans.
Kroenke
My old man once said my politics were slightly right wing of Genghis Khan. I didn’t speak to him for over 2 decades, even when he was dying.
I’ve never been that left wing.
Bob
The cup matches won’t likely be cat A – FA Cup matches will be mostly B or C, CL in the latter stages will but that was always the case and the difference in cost from a B (which ST’s used to be costed from) was added to the cost of the following seasons.
You’ll see a 6% increase – if I were you I’d be asking why the club isn’t expecting Arteta to exceed more than the minimum number of matches.
Marc-my comment wasn’t meant to disparage gameday ticketholders, it was just a recognition of the fact that what happens outside the venue has far more importance nowadays…even more so when you take into account the new generation of viewers who appear to be a much more fickle and easily distracted bunch…Cheers
Marc, all CL games will be Cat A, depending on the draw FA Cup could be bevA, b or c
on a more Arsenal-related note, I know Kiwor wants to cater to the fragile ego of his relatively new boss, but him making a point of telling the fans that he chose us over the Hammers doesn’t say much except that maybe we should raise our transfer bar…now at least this summer we appear to be targeting players who’re likewise being coveted by teams of consequence, but that’s a pretty rare occurence over the past two decades…this is why it’s so imperative that we don’t get gazumped on one or multiple fronts during this TW
TRVL
Wasn’t suggesting you were – just my take on the events at the time. What you say about the new generation is going to change football massively. I used to watch to live matches on a Sunday with a Grand Prix in the middle – current generation want goal alerts from a dozen matches. If it spins over into match day attendances it’ll cause huge damage to the PL.
Bob
“all CL games will be Cat A” you’ve already paid for the group stage so how different is that from previous seasons?
I will say this, if we somehow manage to get Rice or Caicedo, preferably the latter, Lavia, either Simons or Barella and Timber, I’ll be elated, especially if we can get rid of Xhaka, Eddie Elneny, Holding and Jorginho, while keeping Balo, ESR and Tierney…what are the chances?? is there actually a percentage lower than 0?? that would represent our best window ever and a clear sign of our intent both now and for years to come
keeping in mind that all of the players mentioned have been discussed during this window, minus Barella, so it’s not like I’m pulling names out of thin air…that would be 5 in, including Havertz, and 5 out
The Saudis could change everything and I fear probably will. Much as they seem to have done with golf or as Indians did with the IPL. When players can bugger off to Saudi and triple their wages why stick around? For authenticity?
A bit like the Qatar World Cup, many of us miss the point. This isn’t about our needs or what we deem the ‘authentic’ match day experience. People who don’t live in football hotbeds want to see the biggest games and the biggest players too. Pre and post match piss ups be damned. They don’t care about our songs that they mostly don’t get, we do. So we think what we want or are accustomed to is important.
In the West, we spent the whole World Cup moaning about South Asian migrant workers, no alcohol in stadia etc, in Qatar the crowds reflected, for once, the global majority. 1 in 8 people globally, maybe more are of South Asian descent, that was reflected in the World Cup crowds. They weren’t wailing about migrant workers. They wanted to see big names in big games.
In the four previous world cups I’ve been to it was the same old demographic give or take. Mostly middle aged Westerners with a bit of colour provided by the more affluent or devoted non Westerners.
If the Saudis buy all the stars people will go to the games. We might not, it’s not about us and what we think makes a good matchday experience.
At some point, Saudi could pay to have their globetrotter teams in the UCL. I saw a kid in a Hilal shirt playing in Highbury Fields yesterday, I’m just too old to ‘get it’.
Uefa will bend the rules for money much like Fifa did and will do. This isnt about what we want and hasn’t been for a long time. There’s a strata of clubs that don’t need to make money. If ManC’s sanctions for rule breaking are too severe for them, what’s to stop them jetting off and joining the Saudi league?Fifa rules, Saudi FA rules? The Saudi FA will change them and dare Fifa to stop them. Or pay Fifa off?
At this stage, I can see a world of possibilities, not good, not bad, just not what I’m used to, and there’s nothing the powers that be could do to stop them. If the Saudis want to create their own Club World Cup to rival Fifa’s in 2025 and offer all the possible participants billions to enter what’s to stop them. Fifa sanctions? They’ll all just leave and join the PIF Masters league or European Super League if that’s a better way of branding it.
I fear the genie’s out the bottle and it’s a question of who breaks ranks for a few Riyals first. The formation of the Prem was all about making money, the initial interest in the ESL was the same. We’re only haggling about the price now I fear.
My ST seemed cheaper than I expected this year. The 6% won’t bite unless we do well. I’ll worry about that next summer.