Last Updated on 07/10/2023 by てんしょく飯
The world soccer map may be about to change dramatically. The Saudi Arabian League clubs are attracting players at a tremendous rate. Last season, Al Nasr made headlines by acquiring Cristiano Ronaldo for a whopping 300 million euros over two years, and this season, the Saudi Arabian League is taking things to a whole new level.
Why is the Saudi Arabian League so obsessed with acquiring star players?
League powerhouse Al Hilal is said to have made a whopping offer of 500 million euros a year for Messi. Shohei Ohtani’s salary after next season is said to be $60 million, the highest in Major League Baseball history. With that in mind, you can see that the annual salary offered to Messi is outrageous. Messi ended up moving to Inter Miami of the U.S. MLS, but his annual salary was 35 million euros. It was a tenth of Al Hilal’s.”
If Messi doesn’t pan out, Al Hilal is said to be in talks with PSG’s Neymar and Real Sociedad’s Takefusa Kubo, who plays for Japan. Rival teams are not silent either. Al Ittihad has acquired Benzema from Real Madrid, Kante from Chelsea, and Jota from Celtic, while Al Nasr has acquired Brozovic from Inter.
It’s not just players that the Saudi League is reaching out for. Al Ittefaq brought in Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard as manager. Al Hilal is reportedly negotiating with Mourinho. Anyway, what is surprising is the high annual salary. It is said that 40 million euros was offered to Takefusa Kubo, whose salary is currently said to be 2.5 million euros per year, although he eventually turned it down. Probably every player or coach who has been approached by Saudi Arabia has been offered 10 to 20 times the current salary.
Why is the Saudi Arabian league so keen on acquiring star players?
It is probably a reflection of their strong desire to attract the World Cup. They must have been very disappointed with the success of the tournament in Qatar, a neighboring country. The Saudi Arabian soccer fever has risen considerably after the victory over Argentina in the last World Cup. In the past, the Saudi league was a pastime for the rich. However, as their children went to study in Europe and the U.S., they began to think of the sport as a business, and they acquired strong European teams such as Manchester City and PSG, which have become very successful. I believe that these “study-abroad” students are now trying to boost the domestic league,” he said.
When you attract star players, the level of the league as a whole rises. This is the same process that Japan’s J-League went through in the past.
In the early days of the J-League, foreign stars such as Zico and Stojkovic were invited to play in the league. The J-League also invited foreign stars such as Zico and Stojkovic in its early years, which boosted the league and led to the World Cup in Japan and Korea, and the Japanese national team grew to the point where it could be considered a regular participant in the World Cup. Saudi Arabia is now on the threshold of a growth curve similar to the one that Japan has followed. I would not be surprised if Saudi Arabia is called a powerhouse nation in the near future. I think the Saudi League will become more and more interesting in the near future.
Al Nasr, a Saudi Arabian football team featuring Cristiano Ronaldo, will visit Japan this summer to play matches against PSG and Inter. While most of the attention tends to focus on the European League teams, keep an eye on the fast-growing Saudi Arabian league team Al Nasr, who will be playing against PSG and Inter.
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