A video billboard in Jeddah welcomes those heading into the city along the airport road with a glowing portrait of Saudi Pro League stars, Cristiano Ronaldo still dead centre in the spotlight. Last Sunday, King Abdullah Sports City hosted a high-production value launch event with rappers, glitter and a lot of fans taking photographs. Elsewhere, however, it is difficult to detect much Pro League fever as Saudi Arabia prepares for Friday night’s big kick-off.
This may have something to do with the heat; daytime temperatures are currently approaching 40C in Saudi Arabia’s second city and are far higher in Dammam, where Jordan Henderson, under his Al-Ettifaq manager, Steven Gerrard, is set to make his debut against Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr in the opening round’s standout fixture on Monday night.
The opening game, in which Al-Ahli host Al-Hazem, brings the resumption of a freshly minted rivalry. Two and a half months ago they faced one another on the final day of the second-tier season. A 0-0 draw enabled Al-Hazem, a former third division side from the regional city of Ar-Rass, to join Al-Ahli in securing promotion. A lot has changed in the short time since.
For starters, the Pro League has exploded in the international sporting consciousness, largely as a result of having the audacity to offer European clubs market value for their mid-to-late-career players. Al-Ahli have also been taken over by the country’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF, as part of a restructuring of Saudi league football to further its international competitiveness. This has given the club access to a not insignificant amount of money.
And so as the clock ticked down to a season with many more eyes on it than before, Al-Ahli were able to post amenable social media content from training that featured Riyad Mahrez, Édouard Mendy and Roberto Firmino larking about together. Allan Saint-Maximin did not feature in the promotional materials but he has also moved to Jeddah from Newcastle. So too has the highly rated young German manager Matthias Jaissle, who walked out on RB Salzburg to take on a challenge for which he will no doubt be well remunerated.
For Al-Hazem, meanwhile, pickings have been slimmer. Their biggest summer signing is the Comoros Islands winger Faïz Selemani, who cost £1.25m from the Belgian side KV Kortrijk. They did pick up the Tunisia goalkeeper Aymen Dahmen, who kept France at bay in Qatar, on a free, and he may yet go on to have another stormer on Friday. If gambling were legal in Saudi Arabia, however, you’d imagine the odds on an Al-Ahli win would be quite short.
Alongside Al-Ahli, PIF took control of the rest of the clubs that make up Saudi football’s Big Four this summer. They went on their own spending sprees. Al-Ittihad, Jeddah’s other club and the Pro League champions, recruited Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kanté and Fabinho. Al-Nassr signed Sadio Mané and Croatia’s Marcelo Brozovic and took a second player unwanted by Manchester United, Alex Telles joining Cristiano Ronaldo in Riyadh. Al-Hilal, historically the country’s most successful club side with 18 league titles, bought slightly less renowned stars such as Rúben Neves and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, but then they are Al-Hilal and they also have the majority of the Saudi national team in their ranks.
The Pro League champions are almost certain to come from this elite quartet. The market isn’t done yet, though, which could alter the balance in favour of one team or another. Just this week there have been rumours of bids for Neymar and the player Saudi fans covet the most for their league, the Liverpool forward and Islamic footballing icon Mohamed Salah. Salah’s agent has said his client will not be moving “this year”. There are also ambitious clubs outside this group, including Al-Ettifaq in the oil city of Dammam.
Henderson, the subject of criticism at home after apparently abandoning his commitment to LGBTQ+ causes to play in a country where homosexuality is illegal, is comfortable talking about his new home, with the start of the season being for him like “the first day at school”. The Pro League, he says, is “a totally different project from [what] I was used to for however many years and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to try it, and have a new experience. I will learn a lot about myself in different ways.”
Mané offered different justifications for his move. He said he was looking forward to beating his former Liverpool teammates in their new setting – “I’m going to win against you guys!” – and talked of how his religion had been a driving factor.
“I spoke to my family, and they were happiest of course because it is a Muslim country. My mum especially encouraged me to go. So it was not hard – it is important to my faith. I am pleased to be part of this project and to make it go forward; we have a bright future ahead.”
Human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International strongly criticise Saudi Arabia for using sport to help change its image in the face of continuing human rights abuses. But the Pro League appears set only to go faster. It has big plans to develop the competition further, with commitments to more transfer spending and to develop Saudi youngsters, with organisers believing the two objectives can be achieved together. From 2025, for example, 10 of a club’s 25 squad members must be under the age of 21, a rule that incentivises local development but doesn’t stop someone spending £50m on the next teenage wunderkind.
Of equal importance, though, will have been the news that the media consultancy IMG, brought on board to make the Pro League an international TV presence, had managed to broker broadcast deals in more than 130 territories for the upcoming season. Several of those are with the digital broadcaster DAZN, which will be showing three Saudi Pro League games in the UK each week. The league’s interim CEO, Saad Allazeez, was delighted with the news. “The watching world can now enjoy front-row seats as Saudi football transforms,” he said, opting to leave to the imagination what it would be transforming into.
