Why the very top players are shunning Saudi

 It was around this time of pre-season in 2023 when journalists received phone calls shortly after interviewing one of European football’s most high-profile players.

He had given excellent answers about the upcoming campaign in the Premier League but asked if his comments on Saudi Arabia could be scratched from the record.

“The Premier League is still the place to be,” was the gist of his innocuous answer. Retracting the comment felt like he did not want to burn bridges with the Saudi Pro League (SPL), where lucrative contracts were getting dished out and future deals looked like a good pension plan for Premier League players.

At the Premier League’s campaign launch ahead of the season, chief executive Richard Masters suggested we needed to keep a careful eye on the SPL. Jordan Henderson had lifted the title a few years previously and was heading to Al-Ettifaq, while his Liverpool team-mates Fabinho and Roberto Firmino were signed by Saudi clubs.

Riyad Mahrez and Aymeric Laporte won the Premier League with Manchester City then headed to the Middle East later in the summer. Two of Chelsea’s Champions League-winning players, N’Golo Kante and Edouard Mendy, also made the move. Masters’ assertion that “it’s a long road the Saudi Pro League has to go on” was at odds with the speed at which players in their peak years were being signed.

Yet two years on and the predictions of the SPL being an endless tap of footballing wealth have not turned into reality. This summer in particular has seen the Saudi market slow down, to the point where intermediaries are focusing on European destinations to maximise wages for their clients.

It is inconceivable that Masters would be asked about the Saudi threat when he next talks publicly. Not when the only notable deal from the Premier League to Saudi was João Félix bringing a dreadful period at Chelsea to an end, costing Al-Nassr just £26m up front and the rest in add-ons. Darwin Núñez may join him as Al-Hilal are interested, although Liverpool signing Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike pushed him further down the pecking order at Anfield.

Foreign players in the SPL are handsomely paid, not least Cristiano Ronaldo after his pioneering move from Europe and recent contract extension to stay at Al-Nassr. Yet the mega-deals are not just handed out with the arrival cards at Riyadh’s King Khalid Airport. While Ivan Toney’s deal from Brentford will see him earn the UK equivalent of £1m a week after bonuses, those contracts have not been negotiated recently.

When interviewed by Telegraph Sport a year ago, SPL sports director Michael Emenalo claimed that Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne were the “types of players” the competition wanted to attract. Both were within a year of being Bosman free transfers but Salah extended his deal at Liverpool and De Bruyne moved to Napoli.

There was a failed attempt to land Bruno Fernandes from Manchester United this summer despite Sir Jim Ratcliffe needing to balance the books and his captain being unsettled as United dropped down the Premier League table last season.

Interest in Ederson emerged but the Manchester City goalkeeper only held informal talks with Galatasaray in Turkey. Others who have been linked with eventually ending up in Saudi include Casemiro, who revived his United career in the last months of the season.

Jose Mourinho had always left the door open to going to Saudi but has stayed in Turkey, where former Villa striker Jhon Duran also headed six months after being the biggest Saudi signing from the Premier League in the January window. Laporte is expected to be another departure before the summer trading ends, while Demarai Gray has traded the SPL for Birmingham City.

Another eye-opening deal – albeit not from the Premier League – was David Hancko’s proposed move from Feyenoord to Al-Nassr. The Dutch left-back looked set to join Ronaldo’s team but at the last minute the deal collapsed and he ended up at Atlético Madrid. Feyenoord were quoted by ESPN as being upset with Al-Nassr for pulling the plug, while the player suggested the transfer fell through because Atlético made their move. Either way, this was another deal that went begging.

Hopes of newly promoted Neom injecting money into the market with fees and wages has proved unfounded. Alexandre Lacazette cost them nothing, while the likes of Marcin Bulka and former West Ham forward Saïd Benrahma have arrived at the £10m-£15m mark. Their salaries are thought to average around the healthy £100,000-a-week mark after tax, which is lower than the big payers in football.

The Saudi squeeze has been seen away from the SPL as well, with Newcastle enduring a torrid summer in the transfer market. The club owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia have missed out on several targets. They missed out on England goalkeeper James Trafford after taking too long to raise their bid to an acceptable £27m. Had they offered that amount earlier in the summer, Trafford would be their player.

Instead, they dragged their feet and the delay cost them dearly. Manchester City were not in the market for a goalkeeper earlier in the summer but came back from the Club World Cup looking to bolster that position and had matching rights on Trafford. They moved swiftly and landed the player. They were also in the box seat for João Pedro but he ended up at Chelsea. Extending Alexander Isak’s deal was on the agenda all season but never got done.

Isak himself has been linked with Saudi clubs in the past, although this summer’s trend of signings would suggest he is out of reach. Theo Hernández and Mateo Retegui moving from Italy have been high-profile acquisitions but there has been no hint at a marquee Premier League signing.

Which direction will it go for the SPL? The doomsday scenario is to fade away like the Chinese Super League, whose Premier League arrivals – apart from Oscar – moved elsewhere when clubs there began to fold and restrictions on spending were imposed. There is a World Cup in Saudi Arabia in 2034 so another push for the limelight would be expected over the next nine years.

The initial burst of 2022 signings are also coming to the end of their contracts in the next couple of years, so there could be investment in a new raft of stars to take the competition to the next level. As Masters suggested, it is a long road for them to compete with Europe’s biggest leagues.