Saudi Pro League

Such a waste of money. They could invest it in transitioning their economy away from oil and on new technologies for the future and instead they enrich mercenaries like Neymar to play in a league nobody cares about just to burnish their image on the international stage.

Yeah. And when the oil runs out, or as it is scaled back for other forms of energy, they'll still be a corrupt, anti women, backward, discriminatory state - just without as much money.  All the money grabbing hangers on will just go home and what will have been accomplished. F**k all.

Yeah. And when the oil runs out, or as it is scaled back for other forms of energy, they'll still be a corrupt, anti women, backward, discriminatory state - just without as much money.  All the money grabbing hangers on will just go home and what will have been accomplished. F**k all.

The main target is hosting the world cup.

That's part of the reason for all the money splashing signings.

I feel that Neymar has wasted his career, more concerned about money than anything else.

I feel that Neymar has wasted his career, more concerned about money than anything else.

Yeah he wasted it the minute he went to PSG

I have never ever understood all the praise this fella has received. He has/had a certain skillset, but  I've always thought he's a bit sh*t.

More and more players and coaches who would play in UCL next season are flocking to Saudi Arabia. Will UCL soon become the new Copa Libertadores? It used to be the biggest thing for Latinos to play there, but they still kept opting for the higher salary in Europe. I think anyway that the "UCL argument" is greatly overrated. How many times have players moved from Bundesliga, Seria A, Lique 1, La Liga or Liga Nos to midfield teams in the EPL (or further down) when they could have played with their clubs in the UCL? The best staff always goes where the salaries are best. It was never different. And it will be the same here. Saudis will bring top-flight football to their country. And I think Newcastle will then be what Red Bull Salzburg is for Leipzig.

More and more players and coaches who would play in UCL next season are flocking to Saudi Arabia. Will UCL soon become the new Copa Libertadores? It used to be the biggest thing for Latinos to play there, but they still kept opting for the higher salary in Europe. I think anyway that the "UCL argument" is greatly overrated. How many times have players moved from Bundesliga, Seria A, Lique 1, La Liga or Liga Nos to midfield teams in the EPL (or further down) when they could have played with their clubs in the UCL? The best staff always goes where the salaries are best. It was never different. And it will be the same here. Saudis will bring top-flight football to their country. And I think Newcastle will then be what Red Bull Salzburg is for Leipzig.

How many young players have moved. The majority have been the wrong side of 28 and looking for a pay day.

Same F***ing situation as the Chinese league. No one will give a F**k about it in a couple of years time.

How many young players have moved. The majority have been the wrong side of 28 and looking for a pay day.

Same F***ing situation as the Chinese league. No one will give a F**k about it in a couple of years time.

At first they brought in slightly older players. Lately, it's players in their prime and in top form. Like Savic, Neves, Jota, Maximin, Malcom, Ibanez, Demiral, Kessie, Mitrovic, Fofana, Sakala, Diallo etc. These are all players between 24-28 years old. I wouldn't call players like Fabinho and Brozovic who are 29 or 30 old either. Also players like Mahrez, Bono, Mane, Firmino, Neymar (all 30-32) etc. could easily continue playing with a good UCL team. Porto's Otavio (28), who was Liga Nos Player of the Season, is also safe. Especially players like him, Malcom and Jota, in their prime, who shot their respective leagues short and small, switched to the top leagues earlier. And there are still a lot of good names being traded.

What the Saudi league has accomplished in half a transfer window, MLS, Japan and China have not accomplished in all these years combined. The SPL is a young league, younger than the Seria A for example. And already has more star players than Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga. And thats just the beginning. Let's see after 2-3 more transfer windows.

You shouldn't worry! The Saudis don't want to destroy your football. There will always be football here. Also, they don't have that many squad slots to accommodate everyone. What they want is only your elite footballers. Not worth mentioning. In Germany we always say when the English keep buying away our star players; "It doesn't matter. We have a good scouting department. It has always been our way to promote and bring forth new talent." I think the English will also need a good scouting department in the future. Sisyphean labor is a great thing.

I think things can get a bit more problematic if the other two heavyweights like UAE and Qatar also get the idea to pimp their leagues. But never mind. What counts are the clubs and not the players. Even if the league is full of Maguire's and Lingards. Doesn't matter at all. I don't care about the best. I am interested in the amateurs of this sport.

I feel that Neymar has wasted his career, more concerned about money than anything else.

I've never actually thought he was that good tbh. Seemed a massive hype machine based on some good performances at the very start of his career.

I've never actually thought he was that good tbh. Seemed a massive hype machine based on some good performances at the very start of his career.

Yeah that little runt was always massively overrated.

Was in a great Barca side with prime Messi made him look like 10 times the player he really was.

Yeah that little runt was always massively overrated.

Was in a great Barca side with prime Messi made him look like 10 times the player he really was.

Overrated? Ever seen his scorer stats? He is the record scorer for the record world champions and the biggest soccer nation in the world. Has won everything there is to win at club level. An R9 can't say that about itself. With a Brazilian national team in the early 2000s, he would have easily become world champion. Compared to the R9 and R10, which only had a few good years each, Neymar has been absolutely world class for a decade. This is very rare for Brazilians. For me he is the best dribbler in this sport with R10. You don't get all that because you're overrated.

Yeah that little runt was always massively overrated.

Was in a great Barca side with prime Messi made him look like 10 times the player he really was.

Agree. Overrated to buggery. F**k him

Overrated? Ever seen his scorer stats? He is the record scorer for the record world champions and the biggest soccer nation in the world. Has won everything there is to win at club level. An R9 can't say that about itself. With a Brazilian national team in the early 2000s, he would have easily become world champion. Compared to the R9 and R10, which only had a few good years each, Neymar has been absolutely world class for a decade. This is very rare for Brazilians. For me he is the best dribbler in this sport with R10. You don't get all that because you're overrated.

He’s been a cry baby for ten years more like. Glad he never came to PL

are we going to see some sort of collusion between the oil clubs selling sh*t older players packing them off to Saudi  to enable the EPL to spend more and avoid FFP.

You shouldn't worry! The Saudis don't want to destroy your football. There will always be football here. Also, they don't have that many squad slots to accommodate everyone. What they want is only your elite footballers. Not worth mentioning. In Germany we always say when the English keep buying away our star players; "It doesn't matter. We have a good scouting department. It has always been our way to promote and bring forth new talent." I think the English will also need a good scouting department in the future. Sisyphean labor is a great thing.

I think things can get a bit more problematic if the other two heavyweights like UAE and Qatar also get the idea to pimp their leagues. But never mind. What counts are the clubs and not the players. Even if the league is full of Maguire's and Lingards. Doesn't matter at all. I don't care about the best. I am interested in the amateurs of this sport.

Saudi League is a basic vehicle to promote Saudi Arabia as a venue for the World Cup.

Oh and for your information - we're not English, we're SCOUSE 😀

Wont be watching any apart from what highlights you may see on sky sports news.

Only just noticed games are being shown on the DAZN channel on sky, which I can't be arsed getting.

Overrated? Ever seen his scorer stats? He is the record scorer for the record world champions and the biggest soccer nation in the world. Has won everything there is to win at club level. An R9 can't say that about itself. With a Brazilian national team in the early 2000s, he would have easily become world champion. Compared to the R9 and R10, which only had a few good years each, Neymar has been absolutely world class for a decade. This is very rare for Brazilians. For me he is the best dribbler in this sport with R10. You don't get all that because you're overrated.

Suarez was better than Neymar at Barca

That's exactly what I saw coming.

Al-Hilal signs a Saudi talented centre-back (Hassan Tambakti) for €33.4m (!!!) from Al-Shabab.  Record transfer for a Saudi!

Due to the foreigner ban, competitive Saudi players will be worth their weight in gold, with the SPL's top clubs constantly fighting over each other.

The Saudis will probably be the new English with just as funny market values. 

The UEFA clubs remind me more and more of the NATO countries. Unfortunately just as hypocritical. Always raid and exploit smaller ones. But when someone else comes along and tries it on them, it's easy to panic, want to change the rules, and do whatever it takes to stop this "destruction." You think you're at war. The propaganda is also the same. Your losses are constantly being downplayed, while the enemy will never have a chance to succeed and will eventually collapse.

One should take it easy and accept that the Saudis have now entered the football market. And if they mean business (which they likely will at least until 2030), no league in the world will be able to stand in their way, let alone clubs.

The power of the petrodollar is tremendous. Even world powers orientate themselves on him. It has brought down some and has the potential to bring down more. Better not to declare war on them. That has already cost Barca their heads in the case of Verratti. And that was just PSG.

The UEFA clubs remind me more and more of the NATO countries. Unfortunately just as hypocritical. Always raid and exploit smaller ones. But when someone else comes along and tries it on them, it's easy to panic, want to change the rules, and do whatever it takes to stop this "destruction." You think you're at war. The propaganda is also the same. Your losses are constantly being downplayed, while the enemy will never have a chance to succeed and will eventually collapse.

One should take it easy and accept that the Saudis have now entered the football market. And if they mean business (which they likely will at least until 2030), no league in the world will be able to stand in their way, let alone clubs.

The power of the petrodollar is tremendous. Even world powers orientate themselves on him. It has brought down some and has the potential to bring down more. Better not to declare war on them. That has already cost Barca their heads in the case of Verratti. And that was just PSG.

Don't forget chopping up journalists, they're good at that too, will make the press conferences more interesting.

Then there is also migrants getting shot on the Saudi border.

The power of the petrodollar eh?

The UEFA clubs remind me more and more of the NATO countries. Unfortunately just as hypocritical. Always raid and exploit smaller ones. But when someone else comes along and tries it on them, it's easy to panic, want to change the rules, and do whatever it takes to stop this "destruction." You think you're at war. The propaganda is also the same. Your losses are constantly being downplayed, while the enemy will never have a chance to succeed and will eventually collapse.

One should take it easy and accept that the Saudis have now entered the football market. And if they mean business (which they likely will at least until 2030), no league in the world will be able to stand in their way, let alone clubs.

The power of the petrodollar is tremendous. Even world powers orientate themselves on him. It has brought down some and has the potential to bring down more. Better not to declare war on them. That has already cost Barca their heads in the case of Verratti. And that was just PSG.

Hi and welcome to the forum, it's good to see that the Saudi government's PR company has so much money they can pay someone to post on football forums.
I'd make a few points in response to your posts.

I'm not angry, scared or panicking about the Saudi pro league. Me and most fans, IMO don't care much about it. It's a bit irritating that Hendo and Fabinho left suddenly but we got a relatively large amount of money for them and have bought replacement players. I'm disappointed that Hendo went, more for the political/social perspective rather than the footballing side. I had/have a lot of respect for him but now he looks a bit of a hypocrite.

I don't think the Saudi league is that big, the transfer net spend this summer is only 5th behind EPL and other European leagues. The big wages paid to lure the players shows that they are really only going for money, not prestige or glory. Would any of the players you list have moved if the pro league club offered wages similar to the wage they were getting in Europe?

The EPL is currently the richest football league in the world but it was not always like that and there will almost always be a bigger fish who will be able to buy the best players. It's been Italy and Spain in the past, maybe it will be Saudis in the future. Football clubs will always lose their best players to other clubs or they retire or get injured. Liverpool has rarely had the best player in the world (how many of our players have won the Ballon D'or) but we have often had the best team in England and sometimes Europe. Big name players are important to the EPL but the competitive football and style of play are more important.

I agree that the petrodollar is very powerful now and Saudi Arabia has massive amounts of money to waste but all things change. Fossil fuels are making our planet uninhabitable at a frightening rapid pace. How long is that money going to keep flowing in to the Saudi government? As others have said they should probably be spending the money on something more useful than old, semi retired footballers. Maybe open some solar panel factories, provide some aid to poorer people in the world or contribute something positive to the world?

I find it quite depressing that Saudi Arabia has so much money and people across the border in Yemen are starving (I'm aware that the UK government is complicit in that, selling weapons to Saudi). The hubris, arrogance and greed makes me very concerned about the future; it's certainly not an issue limited to just Saudi government.

Overrated? Ever seen his scorer stats? He is the record scorer for the record world champions and the biggest soccer nation in the world. Has won everything there is to win at club level. An R9 can't say that about itself. With a Brazilian national team in the early 2000s, he would have easily become world champion. Compared to the R9 and R10, which only had a few good years each, Neymar has been absolutely world class for a decade. This is very rare for Brazilians. For me he is the best dribbler in this sport with R10. You don't get all that because you're overrated.

No chance. The Brazilian Ronaldo was 10x the player Neymar is. One of the purest and best all round no 9s football has ever seen. In his day the best striker on the planet. Neymar played alongside the greatest player ever in a team containing several greats of the game. Only an utter mercenary leaves that to join a club like PSG where winning the league is a stroll.