Saudi Arabia Premier League

One team in red and white hoops and unsurprisingly a few teams wear green. Just beat Al Fahya who wear orange shirts and royal blue shorts, all I ask of any player heading there

 

Will it have a knock on affect to teams like ourselves. With it already being a struggle to keep up the wages from England, now these transfers will surely have a knock on effect of further rises.
Do we need to start paying more wages to stop us from falling behind further?

 

Sky pundits freaking out and talking about wage caps now, if that’s the general feeling, La Liga, Serie A and co will follow.

It could actually help a lot but not in the short term. There will be a lot of average players pimping themselves for a move there to use as a negotiation tactic

 

Ruben Neves & Edouard Mendy: Why is Saudi Pro League signing Premier League stars?

Gary Neville may have asked the Premier League to pause players' transfers to Saudi Arabia for "integrity" reasons, but so far in a busy week of deals there is no sign of it stopping.

Friday saw 26-year-old Wolves captain Ruben Neves join Al-Hilal for £47m, a record for the Molineux club.

And Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy is the latest big European name heavily linked with a deal to join the Saudi Pro League.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and N'Golo Kante have already signed up - marquee names but near the end of their career - and there was speculation Lionel Messi would too, before his move to the US.

But a growing number of players at their peak are attracting interest too, including two other Chelsea players in Kalidou Koulibaly and Hakim Ziyech, plus Arsenal's Thomas Partey.

It underlines the league's ambition to be one of the top five in the world.

Former Manchester United and England defender Neville, though, is among those asking what all this potential activity means.

In June, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns Newcastle United, confirmed it was taking over four leading clubs in the country, including Al-Nassr, who signed Ronaldo in December.

There is uncertainty over whether PIF holds a stake in Chelsea's ultimate owners, the private equity firm Clearlake Capital, although club sources have rejected suggestions of any direct involvement.

"The Premier League should put an instant embargo on transfers to Saudi Arabia to ensure the integrity of the game isn't being damaged," Neville told BBC Sport earlier this week.

"Checks should be made on the appropriateness of the transactions.

"If it comes through that process, obviously transfers could open up again. But I do believe, at this moment in time, transfers should be halted until you look into the ownership structure at Chelsea and whether there are beneficial transfer dealings that are improper."

A question of money - and Financial Fair Play

The Sky Sports pundit's comments come as Saudi Arabian spending in football increases, and as some English clubs face a challenge balancing their books.

Both Chelsea and Wolves have been facing difficult decisions around recruitment this summer as they try to keep within the Premier League's three-year limit on losses of £105m under Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

Chelsea spent more than £400m in transfers last season, while Wolves posted a £46.1m loss last year and boss Julen Lopetegui said the club must "solve" FFP issues to compete in the top flight.

Wolves had thought Neves would join Barcelona this summer. However, the £47m fee agreed with Al-Hilal for the Portugal midfielder was far higher than anticipated.

Sources at Chelsea are adamant Saudi Arabia's PIF has "zero interest, financial or otherwise" in the club. It has never been denied PIF have an involvement in Clearlake but it has been stressed the US private equity vehicle has 400 different investors across six continents and it is thought no shareholder is allowed to own more than 5% of the organisation.

Multi-club ownership is not prohibited by European governing body Uefa, which has so far refused to comment. The Premier League does have a fair value assessment system to try to ensure deals, both commercial and transfers, are conducted at market value. Fifa's transfer matching system is designed to do similar.

The aim, ultimately, is to make sure the rules are followed. No easy task, given that markets fluctuate, and a player's value can change.

Will the Saudi Pro League make a big impact on that market?

What's the pedigree of the league?
Saudi Arabia has always had big interest in football - and a competitive league to go with it.

The national team have qualified for six of the past eight World Cups. They have won three Asian Cups - only Japan have more.

At the Qatar World Cup last year, all 26 members of the squad played for domestic clubs. No club has won the AFC Champions League more times than Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal's four victories.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has become a more visual presence on the sporting scene, hosting Formula 1 races and high-profile world title boxing bouts as well as setting up LIV Golf.

The controversial purchase of Newcastle was further evidence of a growing interest in using sport to project Saudi Arabia to a wider audience. A joint 2030 World Cup bid with Egypt and Greece is planned too.

"Saudi Arabia sees itself as being at the centre of a new world order and investing in sport helps contribute to that national positioning," Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School in Paris, was quoted as saying recently.

Improving the Saudi Arabian league is part of that plan - with the help of high-profile names.

Former Leeds and Wolves forward Helder Costa, former Argentina international Ever Banega and former Watford and Manchester United striker Odion Ighalo all featured last season, when Al-Ittihad, coached by former Wolves and Tottenham boss Nuno Espirito Santo, finished as champions.

Is this another Chinese Super League?
When a league becomes a big player in the world transfer market, questions about its financial sustainability will follow.

The Chinese Super League, for a brief period, attracted much interest and paid huge sums to attract high-profile players, such as former Manchester United and City forward Carlos Tevez. Such levels of spending didn't last.

But the Saudi Pro League believes it is built on more solid foundations.

"The league is well established, going since the 1970s, and clubs have a real fanbase who care about football which makes it authentic and not artificial," a senior league source told BBC Sport.

"When it happened in China, it wasn't explicitly government money. It was about encouraging entrepreneurs to do things. Then that stopped.

"Here the funding is more secure and part of a long-term plan. The clubs are well established in the local communities and football across the country is by far the number one sport.

"Although the league has a fair amount of foreign players, it's the big stars who get you worldwide TV coverage. As soon as Ronaldo came in, the league started to be shown in every major market. It gets that immediate attention.

"The announcement that the top four clubs will be 75% owned by PIF, rather than by the state, turns them into a proper business. It is not just about bringing in top players but also about changing the economy of the game here to make it more private sector and develop clubs and companies and brands.

"The Ronaldo transfer proved it can happen. It is one thing to say 'we are going to sign the best players in the world' but for someone of Ronaldo's status to actually come, live in Riyadh and play every game, was a surprise to people and showed we could get other people to come."

Is Europe worried about a talent drain?
For European football, the rise of the Saudi Pro League presents a challenge.

Losing key players is not a new experience - China and Major League Soccer have tempted stars away in the past. However, the departure of players in their prime, such as Neves, is a concern.

If he can pick up the kind of eye-watering salary speculated at, how do European clubs respond? Even among the top 20 in Deloitte's rich-list, funds are not limitless and financial regulations have to be adhered to. If they try to compete over an extended period, it would materially impact clubs' biggest outlay - salaries.

And what about the Champions League? If its pre-eminence as a club competition started to be undermined by an absence of world football's biggest names, could clubs from outside Europe be offered entries?

Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin doesn't see it that way.

"It's mainly a mistake for Saudi Arabian football," he told Dutch broadcaster NOS. "They should invest in academies, bring their own coaches and develop their own players.

"The system of buying players that are almost at the end of their career is not the system that develops football. It was a similar mistake in China when they all brought players who are at the end of their career.

"It's not only about money. Players want to win top competitions. And the top competition is in Europe."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65956434

 

Will be funny ad * when rhey * the epl


Skickat från min SM-F926B via Tapatalk

 

I welcome anything that has the potential to burst the orem league bubble. You can call it jealousy, envy or even spite from me but anyone with Sense knows that bubble needs burst

 

don’t really have much self awareness the english, do they?

 

Hope this destroys the EPL!!

 

After seeing how some of the Saudi players actually performed at the World Cup…if all these big money superstars actually turn up and play (unlike tevez in China) the league could actually be an alright watch in a year or so

 

We're on the road with Ahlis army.......We're going to the mujahideen.

 

If Jota isnt sporting a massive beard and huffing a hookah pipe with the locals while wearing a retro Saudi shirt in the next 12 months, what is the point of anything?

If he rocks up to the locals with his impressive facial hair and whacks on Live at the Brazen before toking the bong then he's welcome back to Paradise anytime.

 

Achill Islam CSC

Still one of the best rants the huns went on.

It grew arms and legs, even though it wasn't even offensive if it actually did say that, it never stopped them piling on.

The payoff still cheers me up on dark days

 

I didn't know this one but just read up on it

* braindead to the last one of them man!!

 

Saudi Pro League: How Africans have long led the attack in new football hotspot

Last month, Senegal captain Kalidou Koulibaly and goalkeeper Edouard Mendy became the latest high-profile footballers to move to Saudi Arabia, as both left Premier League club Chelsea for a league eagerly hoovering up talent.

After years languishing in the distant reaches of fans' minds, the Middle Eastern nation is fast becoming one of football's hottest new destinations, and not just temperature-wise.

Reigning Ballon d'Or holder Karim Benzema has left Real Madrid, where he won five Champions League titles, for Al-Ittihad while another Frenchman, 2018 World Cup winner N'Golo Kante, will join him at the Pro League champions after seven years at Chelsea.

With the likes of Manchester City's Algeria winger Riyad Mahrez and Chelsea's Gabon striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang also linked with possible moves, BBC Sport Africa reflects on the role some Africans have played in Saudi Arabia's top flight.

Popular place
Since Saudi Arabia's leading division turned professional in 2008, nearly 400 footballers from the continent - representing some 40 African countries - have plied their trade in it.

Some of the most high-profile include Egypt's four-time Nations Cup-winning goalkeeper Essam El Hadary and former BBC African Footballer of the Year Mohamed Barakat, Guinean great Pascal Feindouno and the Ghana pair of Sulley Muntari and the late Christian Atsu.

More recently, Nigeria's Odion Ighalo left Manchester United for a country where compatriot Ahmed Musa had starred for a handful of years for Al Nassr, helping them to one of their nine title wins.

The Riyadh-based club was where Vincent Aboubakar, top scorer with eight goals at last year's Nations Cup, was based until the Cameroon striker was effectively pushed out - given the limit of eight foreigners per team - to make way for a certain Cristiano Ronaldo, despite the latter's concerns.

Portugal's multiple Ballon d'Or winner duly delivered two hat-tricks last season, but five of the other six hat-tricks were all scored by Africans - Zimbabwe's Knowledge Musona and Moroccan trio Karim El Berkaoui, Mohamed Fouzair and Abderrazak Hamdallah.

In total, 41 Africans - representing 18 different countries - played in the Pro League last season.

Sharp-shooters
For the first 19 years of the competition, which started in 1975, local players always led the scoring charts, but that all changed when Senegalese striker Moussa Ndaw topped the table in the 1993-94 season.

The floodgates opened. Players from Angola, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Morocco were soon achieving the same feat, with Ighalo adding Nigeria's name to that list in 2021-22.

In total, Africans have led the scoring charts 14 times in 48 years, with no player making more impact in front of goal than Morocco international Hamdallah - who has finished top of the pile three times.

His 34 league goals in 2018-19 are a record and he finished last season with 21 - enough to see him one ahead of his closest rival, Brazilian Talisca, two better than Ighalo and seven clear of Ronaldo.

"The general belief here in Morocco is that players who play in these Gulf leagues, which are not seen [to be] as competitive as Europe, should not be called up for the national team," says Moroccan football expert Jalal Bounaour.

"But with the efforts being made by football authorities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to promote their league's competitiveness, by targeting quality players in Europe, attitudes are possibly changing.

"Hamdallah has been outstanding in the last season scoring 21 goals in 26 games, but he has yet to be as efficient with the national team."

Hamdallah, who made four World Cup appearances during Morocco's historic run to the semi-finals, is sixth on the all-time list of top scorers in Saudi's top league but may find future opportunities restricted by the arrival of Benzema to compete for his place in the Al-Ittihad side.

Coaching desert
Al-Ittihad's title-winning coach, Nuno Espirito Santo, may have been born in what is today Sao Tome and Principe, but since he entered the world a year before the islands achieved independence it means no African coach will lead a team in next season's Pro League, which starts on 11 August.

Nuno's quirky timing aside, the other prime reason for the lack of African coaches is that South Africa's Pitso Mosimane - one of the continent's most decorated coaches with three African Champions League titles - recently left Al-Ahli.

Despite guiding the popular club back into the top flight at the first time of asking, the 58-year-old left his post a year early after complaining about delayed or non-existent payments from his club, an issue that would seem at odds with the riches now being handed out in Saudi Arabia.

Bolt from the Blues
Two years on from winning the European Champions League and being named Fifa's Best Goalkeeper, Edouard Mendy has moved to Saudi Arabia's second-largest city Jeddah to play for Al-Ahli.

Having fallen out of favour at Chelsea, the Senegalese joins one of Saudi Arabia's most celebrated sides, even though the three-time champions won promotion in May to return to the top flight after a first season in the second tier.

Meanwhile, Mendy's fellow 2021 Africa Cup of Nations winner Koulibaly, 32, can barely have expected that a year after leaving Napoli for London he would be on his way to record 18-time Saudi champions Al-Hilal after the Blues' disappointing Premier League campaign.

Record four-time Asian champions Al-Hilal finished third last season and, with the likes of Mali's Moussa Marega and former Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Ruben Neves in their ranks, they aim to recapture a league title they had won five years out of six prior to Al-Ittihad's first championship success in 14 years last time out.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/africa/66102219

 

Just out of interest can we watch these games in uk ... what with iptv or so??

 

https://belfastmedia.com/mala-poist-profit-has-come-before-principals-for-celtic-s-jota

THE headlines are there for all to see: ‘Celtic sell £25 million Jota’; ‘£10 million tax-free’; ‘Life-changing salary’. Every one of them represents brilliant propaganda for a country whose rulers are responsible for one of the worst human rights records on the face of the planet.

'Sportswashing' is the greatest evil facing sports today and Celtic should not be condoning or even supporting it, as they have done when taking the Saudi blood money.

In March 2022, 81 executions were carried out in a single day in that country in a year that saw the total number of executions almost double following grossly unfair trials.

Journalists are murdered abroad; protestors who dare to criticise the ruling family face up to 45 years in prison – if they're lucky enough to avoid the death penalty; human rights defenders are arbitrarily tortured.


Yet the headlines are all about money and sport, exactly what the Saudi regime wants.

Celtic, my football team, was founded on the basis of helping the vulnerable – the current board should not forget this on their way to the bank.

As for Jota himself, the poor lad was only on a paltry £35,000 per week, the average annual UK salary.

Those fans who used to adore him and are now struggling to pay for their own season tickets in one of the greatest financial crises of recent times will undoubtedly empathise with his decision to leave. Now on £200k per week tax-free, they’ll forgive him while he quickly forgets them and any principles he ever had.

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Milinkovic-Savic has went there

 

I was surprised to see the BBC give a full run down of all the teams in their league.

Why are they giving exposure to their league?