"Saudi Arabia is destroying soccer!" You can find this in almost every article about Saudi Arabia's
transfer to another club (professional sports)
I saw these messages under the news. As we all know, this summer the world soccer world set off a 'gold dollar soccer' dazzle, with former Ballon d'Or winner Karim Benzema, the former world number three
Neymar
(Neymar Jr) and countless other star players have left Europe for the Arabian Peninsula, even Kylian Mbappe,
Lionel Messi (1987-), Argentine footballer
(Lionel Messi) has also been associated with this place. And this world sensation
transfer to another club (professional sports)
The story of how the window actually happened must also begin in 2021.
October 2021
England Premier Soccer League
It was officially announced that Newcastle United had completed a takeover bid by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), a move that sparked a considerable backlash at the time and shocked England and beyond. After that, however, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) began to enter the world of soccer.
The PIF is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, with estimated total assets of a staggering $776 billion, arguably using the wealth of an entire country to run a soccer club in a country that is also home to the world's second-largest known oil reserves and the fifth-largest known natural gas reserves in Saudi Arabia.
You may wonder how this Islamic country from the Middle East can plant a flag in a faraway country in Europe that has nothing to do with them.
England Premier Soccer League
A mid-table team? In fact, as early as 2016, the government of Saudi Arabia launched the 'Saudi Vision 2030' (Saudi Vision 2030), which establishes three major goals: the heart of the Arab and Islamic world, the Asia-Europe-Africa hub and a global investment powerhouse. One of these goals is to help upgrade the domestic industry by investing in the sports industry. In addition to the acquisition of Newcastle United, PIF has also set up LIV Golf, which has made an impact on the PGA Tour.
PIF has also acquired a 75% stake in four domestic clubs, Al Nassr FC, Riyadh Crescent, Al-Ittihad Club and Al-Ahli Saudi FC, and continues to make an impact on the sports world, gradually realizing their three visions in different ways.
Now that the country's "wealth" has been recognized by soccer fans around the world, the "team" must also have a chance to shine, and the Qatar World Cup 2022 was the perfect opportunity for Saudi Arabia. In the first match of the group stage, Saudi Arabia, ranked 51st in the world at the time, won by a huge margin.
an upset (esp. in sports)
In the end, the team beat Argentina, the favorite to win the tournament, by 2:1, which was the only defeat of the entire tournament for Saudi Arabia. Although Saudi Arabia failed to make it out of the group stage, this was the only defeat of the tournament for Argentina, who were the last to win the title.
Despite entering the second consecutive
World Cup
The team has been playing in intra-conference matches, and last year they even played amazingly well, but in fact, Saudi Arabia has not won any important results in international matches in recent years, and at most, they were the runners-up in the 2019 Arabian Gulf Cup. The Asian champions, who once won three Asian Cups between 1984 and 1996, stopped at the last one.
semifinals
The reason for this can be attributed to the fact that most of the local players stayed in the domestic league to play soccer, and received insufficient stimulation, compared to Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries, the outflow of players to Europe is relatively small, which also affects the results of the international tournament.
Going back in time to the end of 2022.
Manchester United Football Club
Announcing a partnership with soccer superstar
Cairo
（Cristiano Ronaldo's contract was terminated early, making him a free agent, and in an instant the 37-year-old striker with five Ballon d'Ors became a big fish on the market. In the end, Riyadh from Saudi Arabia announced a deal with
Cairo
Signing a 2.5 year deal to bring one of the best players in the history of world football under his wing, and the deal is even more staggering, with a total annual salary of 200 million euros, making the
Cairo
Jumped up to the highest paid athlete in the world.
Cairo
It is the most followed Instagram account in the world (600 million) and the Portuguese's superb business skills have quickly raised the profile of Riyadh Victory and Saudi Arabia to more than one level. Riyadh Victory's official IG has doubled from 800,000 to 1.6 million followers in just a few hours, and has now surpassed 18 million, surpassing many of Europe's oldest soccer clubs.
In addition to earning a lot of money off the field, the self-disciplined
Cairo
The team also maintained its competitiveness on the field, with 14 goals and 2 assists in 16 matches since joining the team, successfully helping Riyadh Victory to take the second place in the league.
Cairo
In an interview, he said, "In my opinion, if they continue to do what they want to do, in the next five years, the Saudi Arabia League can be ranked in the top five in the world." At first everyone thought it was just a scene-stealing exercise in parasitism, but only half a year later, a major storm swept through the global soccer world this summer, shaking the world.
