After the appearance of Cristiano Ronaldo last December, Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Pro League threw a “mountain of money” into the transfer market to bring in great international stars such as Neymar, Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante, Sadio Mane. As a result, they became the 2nd highest spending league in the world in the transfer window that just ended.
In total, 957.1 million euros were spent by Saudi Pro League clubs to buy players, only behind the 2.81 billion euros of the Premier League (with famous contracts like Moises Caicedo to Chelsea). , Josko Gvardiol to Man City and Declan Rice to Arsenal).
This amount puts the Saudi Pro League in second place compared to the rest of the five major European leagues, closely followed by Ligue 1 with 898.6 million euros, Serie A with 854.3 million euros. In the Bundelisga, 748.3 million euros were disbursed, while last place in the top leagues went to Spain’s La Liga with just 440.8 million euros – Jude Bellingham alone accounted for almost a quarter.
The biggest difference between the Saudi Arabian National Championship and the European leagues is that only they have expenditure and very little revenue, so the final balance leaves a negative deficit of 892 million euros. Statistics show that they only earned 47 million euros from selling players.
Regarding the comparison between tournaments, Neymar said in a recent interview: “With the players who have come, I don’t know if the Saudi Arabian National Championship is better than the French Championship or not. I want to win titles with Al Hilal. That doesn’t change my opinion.”
Top 10 most expensive contracts in the Saudi Arabian National Championship
Neymar from PSG to Al Hilal for 90 million euros
Otávio del Porto to Al Nassr for 60 million euros
Malcom from Zenit to Al Hilal for 60 million euros
Ruben Neves from Wolves to Al Hilal for 55 million euros
Aleksandar Mitrovic from Fulham to Al Hilal for 52.6 million euros
Fabinho from Liverpool to Al Ittihad for 46.7 million euros
Sergej Milinkovic-Savic from Lazio to Al Hilal for 40 million euros
Gabri Veiga from Celta Vigo to Al Ahli for 40 million euros
Riyad Mahrez from Manchester City to Al Ahli for 35 million euros
Sadio Mane from Bayern Munich to Al Nassr for 30 million euros
