Anyone expecting immediate results from Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented splurge on football stars has likely been disappointed, as billion-dollar spending has created an uneven season with no international titles to date.
Despite pyrotechnic revelations from superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Neymar last year, the new Saudi Pro League has provided few fireworks since.
On Saturday, Al Hilal won their fourth title in five years with three games remaining, even without the services of Neymar, who was injured on international duty with Brazil in October.
None of the Saudi teams reached the final of the Asian Champions League, hosts Al Ittihad were eliminated in the second round of the Club World Cup in Jeddah and Roberto Mancini’s Saudi team lost in the round of 16 of the Asian Cup.
Al Hilal were so dominant that they won 34 consecutive games in all competitions – a record for a top-flight team – and remain unbeaten in the Pro League.
Wins of 9-0, 7-0 and 6-1 highlighted the gulf between Al Hilal, one of four clubs bought last year by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s oil-backed sovereign wealth vehicle, and the rest .
Al Hilal, Ronaldo’s Al Nassr, Riyad Mahrez’s Al Ahli and Al Ittihad, Benzema’s new employers, occupy four of the top five positions in the league table.
“The lack of an adequate distribution of players among all teams created a clear gap between the big and small teams and killed the competition in favor of Al Hilal,” Mohamed Mandour, a Paris-based journalist for the Sportsdata website, told AFP.
– World Cup, here we come –
The league’s administrators, also recently hired, say it is a long-term project and that it will take time to achieve its goal: becoming one of the top five national competitions in the world by metrics such as player quality, stadium attendance and success. commercial.
Already on the horizon is 2034, when Saudi Arabia, eager to present a new image and prepare for the post-oil era, becomes the second Gulf country to host the World Cup, after neighboring Qatar in 2022.
The $957 million spent on players last summer, second only to the English Premier League and unprecedented in Saudi football, has undoubtedly sparked extra interest in the competition, even if it has not yet reached its peak.
At a recent game in Riyadh, Ahmed Osama, an Egyptian living in Saudi Arabia, sat happily with his two sons watching Al Nassr and Ronaldo, 39, a football legend at the end of his career.
“We just came to see Ronaldo, who they both love,” Osama, 40, told AFP, adding that his nine- and six-year-old sons choose Al Nassr when they play PlayStation, rather than Barcelona or Real Madrid.
– Teeth problems –
Suddenly, signing a series of stars is not a simple task and initial problems include Benzema’s difficulties in adapting to Al Ittihad and Ronaldo being fined for an offensive gesture on the pitch.
Former Liverpool player Jordan Henderson left Al Ettifaq for Ajax after just six months in the Pro League, whose late-night starts, high temperatures and often empty stadiums can be unappetizing for players.
In April, a fan dressed in traditional Saudi attire pulled out a long whip and hit Al Ittihad’s Abderrazak Hamdallah after arguing with the striker in the stands.
Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economics at France’s SKEMA Business School, said it takes years to build the kind of profile enjoyed by the English Premier League or Spain’s La Liga.
“Saudi Arabian football must get used to the fact that money and players alone are insufficient to guarantee perpetual success,” he told AFP.
“This season, Saudi Arabian football has been on and off the radar of football fans,” Chadwick added.
“It can’t be like this. As La Liga and the Premier League show, engagement is a 24/7, 365 day a year phenomenon. Saudi football still has a lot of work to do.”
ht/th/ea
