Written by Beck Smolak
In early January, a bombshell announcement dropped that Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo agreed to join Al-Nassr FC in the Saudi Pro League, securing a staggering $315 million a season for the next two and a half years. With Ronaldo already 38 years old and entering a different stage of his career, he embraced the lucrative offer to leave Europe and play in Saudi Arabia. Ronaldo’s decision to leave Europe after 20 seasons was the catalyst for this whole movement surrounding the Saudi Pro League. He got the ball rolling for the ambitious plans to shake up the world of soccer.
During the summer transfer window a couple of months ago, the Saudis enticed more players to join their league by presenting them with contracts that substantially exceed their current European salaries. Throughout the entire history of soccer, the best players have consistently played in Europe, home to all the top clubs in the world. A couple of years ago, it was inconceivable to think that a top player would even consider playing somewhere outside of Europe. However, that has quickly changed over the past year with the signing of Ronaldo and the continued aggressive pursuit by the Saudis.
Al-Ittihad FC managed to attract Karim Benzema in June, likely because of the $400 million contract for two years. The Ballon d’Or Winner from 2022, an award journalists vote on for the best player in the world from the previous season, decided to leave Real Madrid after 10 seasons for the Saudi Pro League. At Real Madrid, a club renowned as one of the current best and of all time, Benzema was earning approximately $25,000,000 the season prior (Capology). Benzema was not leaving to join Al-Ittihad because this move would better develop his career or give him a greater chance at winning significant trophies. Instead, he opted to leave Real Madrid after a highly successful tenure to secure the massive pay raise as he is approaching the end of his career in a handful of years. Other top players from Europe who joined the Saudi Pro League this past summer include Sadio Mane, N’Golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez, Edouard Mendy, and Roberto Firmino. While all these players are in their thirties and are nearing the end of their prime years, they all are still capable of starting and contributing to virtually any top team in Europe. Nevertheless, they all decided to choose money over everything else, as each of them received a substantial pay raise per season when making the move.
There is quite a bit of controversy within the soccer community surrounding the current actions of the Saudis. Critics argue that it is undermining the sport they have grown to love and cherish since it involves stealing away players when they still have so much to offer. Critics feel players are less motivated and have lost passion to play for their club. Instead, these players are now just driven to make as much money as possible. Taking these world class players out of Europe slowly diminishes the talent pool and big names on each team.
Additionally, Saudi Arabia alone faces its own issues beyond the realm of soccer. They have a terrible record surrounding human rights, there are severe restrictions on women’s rights and the freedom of speech, and homosexuality is illegal. Just last year many stories came out that they exploited low-wage migrant workers when building stadiums for the World Cup and a substantial percentage of them unfortunately died during the process. Subsequently, Saudi Arabia has been accused of sportswashing, the practice of the government using sports to improve the reputation tarnished by that country’s wrongdoings. However, many athletes joining the Saudi Pro League are overlooking the country’s socio-political issues in exchange for a massive paycheck that only Saudi oil can supply.
Unfortunately, there is no hard salary cap in world soccer. If there was one implemented the way the NFL does here in America, then the Saudis would be limited and not allowed to spend such immense amounts of money. Instead, they can do whatever they incline with their money. Since so many of the team owners are in the business involving Saudi Arabia having the largest oil reserves in the world, they have ample financial resources to work with.
The public was most upset when Brazilian superstar Neymar Jr left Paris Saint Germain to join Al-Hilal at the age of 31, despite still being recognized as a part of the top echelon of players in the world. People feel he still has yet to reach his full potential and that will now never happen as is playing in the 27th best league in the world (Givemesport.com). Neymar has always desired to win a Ballon d’Or, but that dream will now never come true as long as he isn’t playing in Europe. The public is saddened because this transfer means Neymar will no longer be playing on the biggest stage, where his league and club tournament games are now drastically different.
However, the many critics of what Saudi Arabia is currently doing were overjoyed when French star Kylian Mbappe, arguably the best player currently in the world, recently declined a massive offer. Fresh off scoring a hattrick in last year’s World Cup Final defeat, he declined over $700 million for just one season. At the young age of 24 and on a trajectory to become one of the best players of the generation, he chose his reputation and chance at becoming one of the greats over the quick money he’d receive in Saudi Arabia. Al-Hilal FC offered his current club $344 million as a transfer fee. This means that the Saudis proposed spending over $1 billion to have Kylian Mbappe under contract for just one single year. Putting this into perspective, Lebron James earned just under $450 million total from all of his contracts spanning over 20 years in the NBA. The Saudis were going to spend over double that cosmic amount of money to reap the benefits of having Mbappe in their league for just nine months. This illustrates their eagerness to secure this top player, recognizing the potential he has to enhance their worldwide influence in the realm of soccer.
Overall, Saudi Arabia is significantly shaking up the soccer world. What initially began with the signing of an aging Cristiano Ronaldo, a player who had already dedicated two decades worth of his career to Europe, has now evolved into the Saudi Pro League luring talented players away who would typically still be playing at the top in Europe for many more years to come. If this trend continues, then the landscape of world soccer will continue to drastically change, likely for the worse.
References
Sritharan, J. (2023, September 5). All Saudi transfers involving big-name players: List of stars to move to Pro League in Middle East. Sporting News. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/soccer/news/saudi-pro-league-transfers-players-list-middle-east/qbiov7emehwfyvcfajrwbyi7
Sritharan, J. (2023a, September 5). All Saudi transfers involving big-name players: List of stars to move to Pro League in Middle East. Sporting News. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/soccer/news/saudi-pro-league-transfers-players-list-middle-east/qbiov7emehwfyvcfajrwbyi7
Cable News Network. (2023, September 24). Saudi Arabia is trying to disrupt soccer’s world order. the reasons why might surprise you. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/sport/saudi-arabia-soccer-spl-bin-salman-intl-spt-cmd-dg/index.html