Revealed: From Cristiano Ronaldo to Messi Benzema! Why did Saudi Arabia buy superstars? Inappropriate second Super League
Benzema's departure from Real Madrid, the next stop is likely to be Jeddah United, while Cristiano Ronaldo is already playing for Riyadh Victory, and Riyadh Crescent is fiercely pursuing Messi - Saudi Arabia's menacing, superstar, but for what?
From Cristiano Ronaldo, to Messi Benzema
At the beginning of this year, Ronaldo caused a sensation in world football by joining Riyadh Victory, but this is just the beginning.
Benzema is about to join Saudi League champions Jeddah United with an annual salary of 200 million euros. In order to get Messi, Riyadh Crescent opened a 2-year 1.4 billion "outrageous" contract, if successful, then the Mero showdown will reappear in Saudi Arabia, and the three Golden Ball winners will also reunite here.
In addition, the Saudi side also hopes to bring in world-class stars such as Modric, Busquets, Ramos, Mane, Ngolo-Cantai, Firmino and so on, at any cost of money.
Saudi Arabia copies the Chinese Super League? More like Major League of America
The practice of buying superstars and Saudi leagues is reminiscent of the Chinese Super League in the Golden Yuan era. At that time, the Chinese Super League was also crazy to throw money, from the European league and even the giants to poach people. However, in terms of the popularity and historical status of stars, Paulinho, Oscar, Hamsik, and Teixeira are completely incomparable with Ronaldo and Benzema.
In fact, the current Saudi league is more like the American major league in the sixties and seventies of the last century. At that time, the Americans also introduced many big-name superstars, such as Pele, Beckenbauer, Cruyfff, George Best, Eusebio, Gerd Mueller, almost all of them are king level, and the luxury is even more than Saudi Arabia!
However, whether it is the major league or the Chinese Super League, the golden dollar football and superstar strategy have ended in failure, as for the reason, to put it bluntly, it is too much money, and it is the club's personal behavior, pure commercial activities, once the owner runs out of money, then the game is over. What about Saudi Arabia? Completely different, so they won't be the second Chinese Super League.
Football is part of the national strategy
In 2016, Saudi Arabia proposed Vision 2030 as a national development strategy that touches on many areas of society, mainly including three main themes: a vibrant society, a prosperous economy and an ambitious country. Among the first themes is the development of culture, entertainment and sports.
In the foreword, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman specifically stated, "We welcome qualified talents from all over the world and respect those who come to join us on our journey and our success." From the perspective of sports and football, world-class stars are undoubtedly "qualified talents".
As part of the Saudi Vision 2030 development plan, Mohammed bin Salman has just launched a project to promote investment and privatization of sports clubs. The project consists of two aspects: first, the approval of large companies and the public sector to invest in sports clubs and transfer their ownership; Second, the privatization of sports clubs from the fourth quarter of 2023.
Today, the first phase has been implemented, with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) acquiring 75% of Jeddah United, Jeddah National, Riyadh Victory and Riyadh Crescent, the four major clubs in Saudi Arabia transformed into corporations, each owned by PIF and non-profit foundations (25%), existing members are included in the four foundations, and PIF works with the Saudi Ministry of Sports to develop regulatory procedures to complete the transfer of clubs to be newly established corporations and non-profit foundations.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund, the Saudi government's sovereign wealth fund, is chaired and actually owned by Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, estimated to have total assets of at least $620 billion, and completed its acquisition of Premier League side Newcastle last season.
In addition, four Saudi secondary and lower league teams have also been privatized: Al Suker was acquired by NEOM, a Saudi government-planned "city of the future" led by Mohammed bin Salman.
Khobail Cudisiyah was acquired by Aramco, Saudi National Oil Company and the world's largest oil company. Draiya was acquired by the Draiye Development Authority, which was actually established by the Saudi government. Al Ullah was acquired by the Royal Commission of Al-Ora, which was also established by the Saudi government.
In short, how Saudi football and the Saudi league are played is not the final say of the club, but part of the overall national strategy. According to the New York Times, future transfers will set up special funds, which will be centrally negotiated by the league rather than the club, and then the signed players will be assigned to a certain team. Saudi Arabia's goal is to allocate three top foreign players to each of the four clubs, with the remaining eight players assigned to the other 12 teams in the league.
In the end, the crown prince hopes to make the Saudi league one of the top ten leagues in the world, and to host the World Cup in the last year of the "vision", that is, 2030, the ultimate goal is, of course, to promote the diversification of Saudi Arabia's development and further enhance its international image and influence.