Thought that the Super League was the biggest threat that the English Premier League has faced? Maybe it’s time to think again.
The takeover of Manchester City by the City Football Group, a holding company with the majority stake owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group in August 2008 was merely the first step in a process that has seen Newcastle and Aston Villa come under Arab ownership, with Manchester United, should the greed of the Glazers ever be fully sated, likely to be the next in line.
In Gary Neville’s excellent book, The People’s Game, he uses the following quote from Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond by Dr Chris Davidson:
“I always felt that the City purchase was a foreign policy exercise. It cultivates good relations with Britain, but it also taps into that global brand the Premier League has in other Arab countries, as well as kids in India, Pakistan, and Africa all wearing the shirt. They know full well who owns it. They know it’s an Abu Dhabi Sheikh and therefore Abu Dhabi must be the good guy.”
In other words, sportswashing, whereby sport is used to improve the public perception of a regime or organisation. If it’s just about a love of football, why didn’t the ownership’s figurehead Sheikh Mansour attend a single City game between August 2010 and this year’s Champions League Final?
We are all aware of the raft of alleged breaches of the Financial Fair Play rules with City have been charged, and that’s a story in itself, but it’s not what prompted me to write this piece.
What did were the offers of a two-year contract worth £40 million from Saudi club Al Hilal for Fulham boss Marco Silva, which was soon overshadowed by the jaw-dropping bid of £259 million ( 300 million Euros) for Kylian Mbappe, arguably the best player in the world currently, which was accepted by his club PSG but rejected by Mbappe himself.
My concern is that the Arab clubs are no longer simply picking up European players looking for a final big payday in the autumns of their careers, but setting their sights on players in their prime, or in the case of Mbappe, not even having reached it yet.
Al Hilal is majority owned by the Public Investment Fund, which is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia with an estimated value of £320 billion and has the majority stake in Newcastle United as well as three of the biggest clubs in the Saudi League.
They have already tempted Ruben Neves, who is just 26, away from Wolves for £47 million, as well as Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, who swapped Champions League football with Lazio to move to the Middle East in a £34 million deal at the age of 28. They have also seen two big offers for 28-year-old Aleksandar Mitrovic turned down by Fulham and one of £120 million for 24-year-old Victor Osimhen rejected by Napoli.
Then there’s Al Ahli, one of those three other Saudi clubs also majority owned by the Public Investment Fund, who’ve signed the 26-year-old Allan Saint-Maximin for £23 million to play alongside Roberto Firmino and Riyad Mahrez.
It may only be relatively few younger players taking the bait at the moment, but it’s not for the want of trying with offers flying everywhere.
The Premier League may well have revolutionised football in this country (although not always in a good way) and achieved a position as the richest league in Europe, but the financial resources of the Arab states are on a completely different level, and they are now starting to flex their muscles.
When the proposed European Super League reared its head, it seemed that the threat to the Premier League came from the Continent, but perhaps the real one is coming from further afield.
It’s easy to forget that the Premier League didn’t fall fully formed from the sky. Back in the early 1990s English stadia were often antiquated and uninviting, and foreign players took some persuading to make the move here, until money started to talk, and the gravy train got into top gear.
In comparison, the Saudi League has top-of-the-range facilities and an apparently bottomless money pit as well as an increasing number of big names.
It happened here, so why wouldn’t it happen there?
Sooner the better for me, Robin. Then proper British football might return, with decent British players in the majority. And if the overall standard drops a little, so be it.
Dream on Dan….
Nice piece, Robin. The English Premier League is essentially now part of a global entertainment industry. It’s where the big clubs and their owners want to be. Coining revenue from broadcasting revenues and corporate sponsorship deals. I am aware that many Norwich fans would like to be there, sharing in the banquet. Realistically, we’re never going to make it to the top table even if we can muster enough quality players to battle back into the Prem. Norwich aren’t a big ‘brand’ and that’s what football clubs have become. In this world, money talks, and the big money is in the Middle East. There is an inevitability about the direction sport is now taking. Check out motor racing and golf for instance. It’s depressing for those of us above a certain age (and that’s not even considering the ethical issues of cosying up to certain regimes).
I agree with you vey much here Robin.
When you make your points about F1, Golf and link them to how depressing it is to those of a certain age you manage to reach out to quite a few people on MFW,
I am soon to be 66 and therefore grew up in different times that fewer and fewer of us are remembering with 20/20 vision by the day.
It’s not really a nostalgia trip based on hand-knitted scarves, cardboard match tickets and Bovril with me, more a sense of regret that we have lost any semblance of what constitutes a level playing field, with your example of F1 probably the most extreme.
*Norwich aren’t a big ‘brand’ and that’s what football clubs have become.”
Quite right but nonetheless very sad.
***Good article, Mr Sainty 🙂
Hear, hear from a 69-year-old (my partner rolls her eyes when I try to make suggestions from it….)
English rugby may offer some hope, as 3 of the big money teamdms fall foul of the rules and fail.
Seems like the first step to Super League anyway, just by a different name. If you have Saudi clubs owning local and English clubs, I can see a time where players are transitioned between them, and you get Al-Chelsea, Al-Liverpool, etc. and they use the Saudi league AS the super league, while continuing to have a functional or feeder team in EPL. It’d mess up UEFA a bit, that’s for sure.
Maybe it’ll never get to this but I wouldn’t be at all surprised…
Last night I heard a great comment about PSG and their Qatari owners – it said the purchase of PSG was to facilitate them being taken as a serious contender for a World Cup and buying players for ridiculously high fees, and giving high wages to entice said players to a poor league.
Now they’ve done the World Cup the vehicle of PSG is no longer needed, so players of high value will be jettisoned like flotsam on the Gulf Waters
It was also said this was first done by the Chinese whose own league changed after the had the Olympics and now no high priced stars or wages, so it has faded into obscurity.
Now being a cynic, the Saudi are very pragmatic and they saw all the flack from LIV (54) and negotiated a settlement with the other golf authorities.
The Saudi wants a World Cup, possibly in 2030 or soon after that, to make them a legitimate football nation but like Qatar, once that’s achieved they will lose interest and go back to the national sport of camel racing with robotic jockey.
Saudi et al are realising oil isn’t going to be forever so they’re all digging deep to be market leaders and chief protagonists in sport-starting with the most money spinning in terms of revenue. Which are, in alphabetical order, football, golf and tennis.
The fact that UEFA will, by 2026, admit Saudi clubs into the Champions League is already an absolute given.
But there are no limits to their global reach, and, with infinite pockets, they needn’t think of anything but the biggest, best and, at times, most outrageous ideas that will be met with incredulity at first but will, in time, go through.
They want to co-host the 2030 World Cup with Greece and Egypt & have, as part of this plan, supposedly offered to pay for the new stadiums required in both countries-IF they can then host 75% of the matches in that years competition.
One World Cup, three different continents. I know. There’s the incredulity. But, as they say, watch this space. The current rumour is that they’ve backed down from this offer but that is a ploy to not only entice the Greek & Egyptian FA’s into their clutches but to remind FIFA of just how much money is being potentially bandied about here-and we all know cold, hard cash rather than football is FIFA’s prime love and objective.
It’ll go much further with other sports. They’ll want both a tennis and golf ;slam’ tournament to be held there eventually.
2036 Olympics? That’s the plan. There are already multiple hosts being suggested for that games, the UK being one of them-but Sadiq Khan is now reckoned to be wanting to push London for 2040 as he has claimed 2036 is already a ‘done deal’.
As for the growth of their domestic football, it’ll be interesting to see who bids, eventually, for the broadcast rights in the UK. Will Sky or TNT want to bring it to our screens or might it go to Amazon and their more global reach?
Someone will want it. And there will be plenty willing to pay £19,99 a month for it here, as well as countless millions all over the rest of the world.
DAZN all ready offering all the games on their platform via subscriptions
Not sure. Part of me thinks yeah, this could happen, but at the same time, how many people watch football just to see one star player? English teams have history, both individually with trophy records and together with rivalries, derbies, etc. European competition has this also. You take one league in Saudi, with the same new teams playing each other week in week out, despite there being those scattering of big names in there, I’m just not sure it will get the crowds tuning in. The EPL gets massive viewing figures worldwide but much of that is the style of play, and these clubs that have so much history in battle, coming together once again.
Similarly with home grown talent; European clubs have a conveyor belt of youth development, I suspect that the Saudi teams might take a while before they are producing their own world class players (assuming they’ve put anything into that infrastructure)so in order to keep up what they’ve started, they are literally going to have to spend hundreds of millions of pounds/euros every year to maintain the level they seek.
I have no idea what the end game of the Saudi regime is here, other than trying to get good PR, but I can see this experiment dying a painful and expensive death in front of 5,000 fans in Riyadh (but at least it won’t be on a rainy Wednesday night, to use the old trope).
There’s a rumour that the Saudi want to get the Gulf States to have a combined league or leagues.
The American who is in charge of the building of the Saudi league has stated he wants it to be like the American league with city academy attached to colleges and universities with women football at all clubs.
Some top referees have started a school of excellent for officials to be taught all the rules along FIFA guidelines.
It’s only a matter of time – like Israel & Australia competing in Eurovision – before the super-rich middle-eastern clubs demand to have their football geography ‘realigned’ so they can compete in the Champions League. And with the best managers and players and most of the money they will easily good enough to compete, and eventually dominate. Alcohol companies and such like will have to start looking for somewhere else to peddle their wares. As they used to say in the ever-distant founding days of the Premier League – ‘It’s a whole new ball game.’
I personally hope the Saudis get this up and running and suddenly pull the money from the big clubs who put the cat amongst the pigeons!
How many survive?
Those of us of a certain age remember when all the truly world class players (Best, Pele, Cruyff, Moore Beckenbaur to name a few) ended up in America. That turn out well didn’t it?
Give me the Championship anyday, even more so now they have tweaked the laws this season!
May be ‘Just stop Oil’ have a point? The Saudi’s control the world economy and top level sport, I expect a European Super League will soon evolve involving clubs owned by Middle Eastern countries.
No doubt we’ll still enjoy watching NCFC, look forward to derby day with Ipswich, etc but not games with the biggest clubs, I won’t mind.
Hopefully we can still enjoy Test cricket !
I think that there is a serious risk of corruption here. With their Public Investment Fund effectively owning several Saudi clubs, along with clubs in Europe, they will have the opportunity to determine which club wins, in their own league and in the Champions League eventually.
FFP is proving to be ineffectual even now, so just imagine what it will be like when they are in control of things. FIFA will be happy, as long as the fat cats at the top are getting their cut. It’s the end of real football, but the rest of us can still get enjoyment from our little clubs.
I agree 100% with what you say Robin.
But there is no stopping it. You can have “Fit and Proper Person” all you like. Some stooge can be put up as a prospective owner with a clean record from a country or huge corporate entity and would become the new Norwich City owner whereas as things stand if Delia and Michael applied now it would be a big no.
Whatever your views on D & M it just shows it is a runaway train as just who is suitable to owning football clubs. There is not a thing the likes of us can do.
These clubs can also find ways round FFP. Bournemouth did and the reward was promotion to the EPL and a miniscule fine in comparison to the money they made by getting into the EPL.
I bet most Man U supporters would prefer the foreign bid than the Sir Jim Radcliffe one. It would put them back challenging with the noisy neighbours and Newcastle.
Back in the day we have had dear old Jack Walker at Blackburn and the Abramovich at Chelsea all heralded as buying the Premier League. This is just an upgrade.
And if Israel can play in the euro’s etc so will the Saudi clubs. It is just a matter of when.
And we have to be fair to football, golf and F1 have long embraces the Saudi Riyal.
I am an old fogey, I loved the old days of the seventies, eighties and early nineties. But I must say Sky and its money has changed a lot for the better, stadiums, the reduction in hooliganism, more family friendly and a better product. But give me the times when anyone could win the league and every cup game was treated as it meant something any day.
What I see as a greater threat is the increase of the summer programme. Th Nations League rubbish for a starter, it should be limited to only under 21’s.
The more countries like Qatar whose weather rule out summer World Cups the more often we will be finishing the European and home competitions in June or July.
It is just greed, how long will it be before FIFA want a 64 nation WC ? it is going up to 48 in 2026 from 32 …. madness. You are going to have to be pretty useless not to qualify so even more games that mean nothing.
However, I accuse Delia and Michael of not excepting the changing face of football, which I wholeheartedly stand by, so I am afraid I too have to accept this.
How have Sky improved stadiums, reduced hooliganism, and made football more family friendly? Hillsborough is the main reason for stadium improvement and possibly being more family friendly, since it was the primary reason for making stadiums all-seated. I can’t think of any initiatives related to reducing hooliganism by Sky either.
I’m also an old fogey, and enjoyed the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, but since Sky, and now Amazon, BT, and Apple have been throwing money at football, it’s become a much less open playing field. With the Arab money, it’s only going to get worse. There won’t be another Leicester type Premier League winner.
I definitely worded that wrongly Jim. Thanks for picking me up on that, my bad.
Hillsborough and the subsequent reports (the honest ones) are the main reason for many of the things that I mention above. What I was trying to say was the increase in TV money, mostly Sky enabled clubs to afford the changes.
I was an occasional away supporter in the seventies, work allowing, the match day experience in the late nineties was a vastly better experience. And a lot of that was down to the more money clubs had for facilities etc.
I agree with you on all but one thing and that is another Leicester. Go back to the summer of 2015 and the idea of Leicester City winning the EPL was an absolutely ridiculous idea. A 5,000-1 idea. And I think those odds were skinny, though not so mad that my friend Trina backed them😱
If the same set of circumstances happen again, clubs in turmoil, Man U, clubs in transition, Man C and a club bottling it, Spurs it could possibly happen again.
I agree it is highly unlikely, more chance of Deli and Michael still running the club at the beginning of the 2080/81 season but still a possibility however remote.