After successfully shaking up the world of professional golf, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has now set its eyes on the most popular sport in the world: football. Two years after taking over Premier League club Newcastle United, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund is now aiming to push its domestic league into the spotlight by bringing world class talent to the Saudi Pro League.
When Cristiano Ronaldo joined Al Nassr on January 1, 2023 on a two-and-a-half year contract worth around $550 million, it was a harbinger of things to come. In June 2023, the PIF announced that four Saudi clubs – Al Ittihad, Al Ahli, Al Nassr and Al Hilal – were transformed into companies majority-owned by the PIF and the football world hasn’t been the same ever since. Stars in the twilight of their careers like Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kanté and Sadio Mané have since joined the Saudi Pro League, but what’s different from previous attempts to buy foreign stars in order to draw attention to a lesser-known league is the fact that the PIF’s money has also lured some players in their prime away from Europe’s top leagues. The wages that the PIF-owned Saudi clubs are paying are so astronomically high that even Premier League salaries pale in comparison.
While convincing players to leave European club football behind has often taken a lot of effort (as in: even larger checks) on the part of the Saudi clubs, convincing the selling clubs was significantly easier in many cases. Clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool or Bayern Munich were happy to offload some of their ageing or out-of-favor stars to Saudi Arabia for above-market rates, despite the general consensus being that competing with the seemingly limitless funds from Saudi Arabia will become a problem for European football sooner rather than later.
As the following chart shows, the money spent on transfers by Saudi clubs this summer matches or exceeds the investments made by clubs from European top leagues, with the notable exception of the Premier League. According to Transfermarkt.com, clubs from the Saudi Pro League have collectively spent $489 million so far this summer, roughly on par with France’s Ligue 1, the Germany Bundesliga and ahead of Spain’s La Liga. Looking at net transfer spending, i.e. spending minus income, the Premier Leage is the only league to exceed the Saudi investment. While the Serie A, the Bundesliga and La Liga are running a significant transfer surplus, net spending almost equals total spending for the Saudi league, as it’s been a one-way street so far this transfer window.
