Until a few years ago, Saudi Arabia’s greatest ambition in football was to host the finals of European gold-weight competitions. But today the Saudi Professional League is an evolving and… dangerous tournament. Let’s see what awaits us in the new 2023/24 season.
Saudi Pro League: favorites of the 2023/24 tournament
Saudi Pro League 2023/24: The favorites of the very rich championship
They said money can’t buy everything. But in football, this proverb is squeaking more and more. Saudi Arabia is proposing itself as a new football reality, and it does so through a strategy that is literally undefended: offering a lot of money to the best players in the world. Cristiano Ronaldo’s signature It was “the border” by Al-Nassr last January.
From CR7 and 200 million a year, it was followed by insane market successes, or at least insane numbers incomparable to any other league in the world, including the very wealthy Premier League. According to SNAI*, Al-Nassr, who signed with Inter’s Brozovic alongside Ronaldo, is only Second favorite of Saudi Pro League 2023/24 at 3.65.
Early favorites I reigning champions Al-Ittihad, data at 2.90. The team, coached by Nuno Espirito Santo, covered two stars in gold with a free transfer in Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kanté. What about Al-Hilal? The white-dark blue club, which was 3rd last season, signed with Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Kalidou Koulibaly and Ruben Neves and became the third candidate for the championship with a score of 3.80.
Why do Saudis spend so much money on football?
Therefore, it is not just great champions at twilight, as might be thought in the case of Cristiano Ronaldo. Saudi Pro League now also targets full-blown athletesTo persuade them to play in a championship that although it has existed since 1976, until a few years ago almost no one knew about it. The Saudi idea of attracting champions is just part of an overall strategy.
A strategy aimed at branding the sport as an icebreaker, but with important goals. political and economic legitimacy. The first impact was the rise of the Saudi Pro League to the 1st place among the most followed Asian national leagues. It is impossible to say what will happen in Europe, whose economic difficulties may facilitate Arab domination.
In the short term, the robberies still don’t seem to be over. One of the next could be Marco Verratti, which Al-Hilal woos and can sell about 50-60 million a year. And imagine that even a newly promoted team like Al-Ettifaq could hire a top coach like Steven Gerrard. For the former Liverpool captain, any company’s stake is interesting: Arabia’s Al-Ettifaq champion pays $20.
*Offers are subject to change
