SPL wants to be in the world's top 10

BINH DUONG

Earlier this month, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund confirmed that it had taken control of four clubs in the Saudi Premier League (SPL), Al Hilal, Al Ittihad, Al Nassr and Al Ahli, with the others soon to follow. Saudi Arabia’s aim is to make the SPL one of the world’s top 10 leagues by significantly improving quality and profitability.

Ronaldo (center) in Al Nassr shirt. Photo: Reuters

The SPL was founded in 1976 and officially became professional in 2007. Only a few matches in the SPL attract 60,000 spectators to the stadium, not the majority of matches. The reason is that the overall quality of the tournament is not high enough. Therefore, after Al Ittihad recruited striker Karim Benzema from Real Madrid, other teams in the SPL also tried to attract many European stars to the arena where Cristiano Ronaldo is playing. The development strategy of the SPL is also to expand the stadiums, broadcasting capacity and professionalism of the tournament.

The rise of the SPL is reminiscent of the story of the Chinese Super League (CSL) from 2015 to 2017. It all started when the country’s leaders announced their ambition to develop a domestic sports industry to compete with the United States and help China become a soccer powerhouse. This created a wave of strong investment in clubs, coaches, stadiums and soccer stars.

In January 2016, CSL recorded three record-breaking transfers. First, Jiangsu Suning signed midfielder Ramires from Chelsea for £24 million, then Guangzhou Evergrande paid Atletico Madrid £25 million for striker Jackson Martinez, prompting Jiangsu Suning to retaliate by spending £38.5 million to bring in attacking midfielder Alex Teixeira.

That summer, Shanghai SIPG broke the transfer record by spending £45 million on star Hulk. Not long after, Shanghai SIPG broke their own record with the £52 million signing of Oscar.

Player salaries are also worth mentioning. Shanghai Shenhua once paid 32-year-old Carlos Tevez more than £30 million a year, while Shandong Luneng “turned” Graziano Pelle into the world’s seventh highest-paid player. At that time, Ronaldo rejected an offer of £85 million a year from an unnamed CSL team.

However, Saudi Arabia has an advantage over China because it is closer to Europe, geographically. It takes only 6 hours to fly from the capital Riyadh to Europe. According to Omar Chaudhuri, a representative of the sports consultancy Twenty First Group (UK), Saudi Arabia was ranked 58th in the global league rankings when Ronaldo joined and has now jumped to 54th. Japan's J1 League is the strongest in Asia and ranked 22nd in the world.

To break into the world’s top 30 in the short term, the SPL will need to have a majority of foreign players, but this violates the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) regulations on developing “homegrown” players. From next season, teams participating in the AFC Champions League will be allowed to register a maximum of 6 foreign players, instead of 4 as before. Therefore, Saudi Arabia will have to focus on developing its own talented players to improve the domestic league.

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