We’re all used to it by now, aren’t we? A big-name player enters the transfer market looking for a move, and instantly they are linked with a move to the Saudi Pro League.
We’ve seen it with Ivan Toney, Victor Osimhen and Raheem Sterling most prominently this summer, while Alisson, Mo Salah, Ederson and plenty more have both been more speculatively linked for months and months.
Yet very few of the names connected with moves to Saudi Arabia actually end up going, with Toney and Sterling’s people both briefing to the press that they would prefer not to unless no other options are forthcoming. Does this mean the Saudi Pro League project is failing?
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Well… no, not really. In truth, the list of players moving to Saudi Arabia was more notable for its sheer number and name value more than out of an ability to attract players in their prime.
Look at the names he did make the move and their status at the time. Cristiano Ronaldo, all of 38 years old and unwanted by a thoroughly mediocre Manchester United. N’Golo Kante, 32 years old and out of the Chelsea side. Sadio Mane, 31, coming off the back of an underwhelming injury-hit year at Bayern Munich, and having recently been suspended for reportedly punching Leroy Sane.
Karim Benzema, still regularly scoring bagfuls of goals for Real Madrid, but 35 years old and able to see the writing on the wall with a new generation of players coming through. Neymar, relatively spry at 31, except for the fact he had never been fit enough for long enough to play more than 22 league games a season for PSG.
There are a few exceptions, like Aymeric Laporte and Allan Saint-Maximin, but on the whole the list goes on and on in that vein. In short, players have treated the Saudi Pro League for what it is: a nascent league with huge amounts of money to spend, and offering far more of it for a late-career payday than they are going to get anywhere else.
For Saudi Arabia’s purposes at the moment, that’s probably absolutely fine. The whole point of it is to portray the country as modern and progressive and young and cool, while erasing some of the far more insidious aspects of their regime. The fact that we can name so many big-name players who are playing there is exactly the point: that’s what they want you to think of when you hear ‘Saudi Arabia’.
But footballers talk to one another, and even those minded to go in that direction will have been given pause for thought by the huge amount of money that Jordan Henderson reportedly had to leave behind to get himself his move to Ajax. That was thanks to a clause that back-loads a lot of the wages and bonuses and only becomes payable if you stick around.
Many players already feel trapped by their contracts at the best of times, but even moreso by the terms of the Saudi deal. If it turns out you don’t like living there and desperately want to move, a lot of the one benefit you would otherwise get for having gone in the first place – a fat wad of cash – disappears and renders the whole thing an unsatisfactory waste of time.
That’s to say nothing of the ethical considerations, which – in common with the wider population – would put some players off going altogether while others just wouldn’t care… if not for the kind of backlash Henderson received from those who felt he had betrayed his previous support for LGBTQ+ rights campaigns. That (entirely valid) uproar will have shone a spotlight on the issue for those who were previously ignorant or would otherwise have been happy to turn a blind eye.
But the simplest factor is… it’s very hard to force a league to become a go-to global destination.
The United States have been trying for decades, right back to the days of the North American Soccer League, which ran from 1968 to 1984 and was very much the Saudi Pro League of its day, attracting past-their-prime stars including Pele, Johan Cruyff, Bobby Moore, Eusebio and Gerd Muller.
In more recent years, we’ve seen David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi give it a go. All it has done, at least from a European perspective, is strengthen the perception of MLS as a cosy home for players who fancy a year or two getting paid well to live in America at the end of their careers. And that’s to say nothing of China’s short-lived attempt to become the new global destination around a decade ago.
The Saudi Pro League is not collapsing; it’s just that it has always only been able to attract a certain kind of player. That leaves them in a big of a catch-22, whereby they may want to get more players in their pomp to come to the league, but are unable to do so because not enough of those players can be found there.
Perhaps that will never change, or perhaps it will happen gradually over time: a shift from players in their mid-30s to those who have just entered their fourth decade, then players of around 28, then finally into who are actually at their peak. But if it does happen, it will be slowly.
In the meantime, those players will continue to be linked – with those connections no doubt encouraged by agents looking for leverage in negotiations with other clubs – but only a few will actually make the jump.
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