We should ask them to take away Martial, Antony, Sancho, McFred, Maguire, Dalot and De Gea. I'm sure they would all be happy playing in a league which is their level while on 4 times their current wages. And, the Saudi league would also become more appealing with their talent on display.
Saudi League thread
- Thread starter shamans
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Lingard will be hanging by the telephone expecting a call from the Saudi’s
It's perfect for SA as most young football fans now aren't fans of clubs but fans of players.
Thousands of fans will have dropped United to follow Ronaldo and other players such as Messi will have the same effect
Thousands of fans will have dropped United to follow Ronaldo and other players such as Messi will have the same effect
Blimey they are going all in this summer.
For now. If they're serious, I'd give it 3-5 years before nobody could compete as they snap up all the fledgling talent across the globe.
Correct, Saudi just bought Golf so only a matter of time until the oil money control the football game too. Pawns are already in place. Its maybe take a bit longer than you suggest but not much longer. It is obvious anything can be bought if enough money is thrown at it.
I mean, is it though? He's got £200k on the table from Palace, is it worth uprooting his family for 50% more?
This is probably limited to some angry United fans, still a bit meaningless for his overall following though…. Ronaldo‘s followers increased by over 70M since he moved over there. He keeps improving the growth rate of 1,5M/week that he’s had over the last 5 years…
It was mainly Brazilians and Mexicans randomly. Or at least accounts based there. Would love to know how many bots are following all these top players now.This is probably limited to some angry United fans, still a bit meaningless for his overall following though…. Ronaldo‘s followers increased by over 70M since he moved over there. He keeps improving the growth rate of 1,5M/week that he’s had over the last 5 years…
I agree with you it‘s not worth it…. But if we consider taxes the difference is bigger… A salary of 200/week in Europe is worth 110/week after tax…. In Saudi the highest he‘d pay would be 20% flat tax. And some of the income isn‘t taxable at all…
15m a year is 288/week with no tax meaning a uk club would have to pay him 570 k circa a week to match it . He current earns tax deducted 3.2m a year so as current rate the 3 years in saudi will equate to roughly 13.5 years of playing here. He will earn his whole career wages in 3 years in Saudi. He will go.
I expect the next step for them, after signing a bunch of highly regarded European based players, will be to try and secure a Champions League final and eventually strike an agreement with UEFA to have a few of their clubs alongside European top guns in a competition (most likely just add Saudi teams to CL at the expense of smaller league representatives). Both will happen within 10-15 years.
I swear if they give up supporting Newcastle to pay for this and they sign someone like shit Bruno and hire Eddie Howe I will die from laughter.
I would love it if that happened.
Still feels like something will go wrong for Newcastle even with unlimited funds. I guess it's just hard to imagine them winning anything when I haven't seen it in my lifetime, although the Leicester and Manchester City fairytales prove that anything is possible in football.
This is like the Chinese league all over again. It means we can make expensive mistakes and farm shite out to the Saudi's. Win win all round
Lets sell them our dross: bailly, telles, martial, donny, maguire, elanga.
Highly regarded geriatric players more like.
UEFA would never allow Saudi teams into the competition, it certainly wouldn't happen to the Champions League, it would cheapen and diminish the jewel in UEFA crown.
A champions League final is entirely feasible, pretty sure some regional finals have been played elsewhere (la Liga etc), so it's not really a stretch to think the Champions League would join suit.
I think that’s the case for most players going to Saudi. They are likely to more than double their career income in just 2 or 3 years time over there.
It’s really hard to turn down such offer.
The final happening there is almost certain IMO. I also expect more domestic cup finals to be played there as well, including FA Cup - as you have rightly pointed out, some of that has already been happening.
As for allowing Saudi teams into CL, it’s a stretch but UEFA is all about money and if they manage to put together a good team or two there, and offer substantial incentives to be let in, this could happen.
I also think at some point we will see some of the top 100-150 players in the world go there in their prime. It won’t be frequent but will occur frequently enough for people to take note and for it to disrupt European football just a little. I’m not talking your Mbappe and Haaland, rather the second and third tier stars. The money will be absurd and hard to resist. Kante getting €100m a year is pure madness.
Would be an amazing summer if we could get them all shifted over there
If you don't think they can turn the game on its head if they are serious about it, you have not been paying attention to how they can do that with any sport they want to. Football and footballers are no different.
Money supersedes absolutely everything "prestige" and "legacy" are not carrying the same weight they used to, but never before has there been this kind of eye-watering discrepancy between going to a league or staying put at your grand and noble club, and no China was and is nothing like this.
Simply put; they are The Borg, and if they set eyes on a project and are serious about it, it will be assimilated. If they want football, a paradigm shift is less than a decade off.
Money supersedes absolutely everything "prestige" and "legacy" are not carrying the same weight they used to, but never before has there been this kind of eye-watering discrepancy between going to a league or staying put at your grand and noble club, and no China was and is nothing like this.
Simply put; they are The Borg, and if they set eyes on a project and are serious about it, it will be assimilated. If they want football, a paradigm shift is less than a decade off.
Azerbaijan is Uefa so not a million miles to see Saudi Arabia being invited in after a truck full of cash is laid before them in the halls of power in Switzerland. Anything is possible and nothing is out of bounds ( pardon the golf pun ) it is only a matter of time. The Saudis need a product for all the international business employees who they want to attract to their Neon City project.
Maybe they get front-row seats to the next public execution as a bonus.
On a serious note. This strategy is doomed to fail if the goal is to improve the national game. Somehow, I don't think they care about that. This is just to massage one man's ego.
Can we offer them Maguirem Martial, DDG, Sancho, McFred and VDB?
Nothing like China IMO. The money is vastly more.
So Oscar moving from Chelsea to China for £67m on £400k a week and Tevez moving for £600k a week doesn't make this in any way shape or form comparable to China?
Well Ronaldo and benzema and reportedly on 4m a week so no, not really
Benzema is old but he's still a fantastic player, 100 mil a year for 2023 Kante is wild.
Ronaldo is probably on that… But Benzema is not. There are all kind of crazy numbers flying around.
Which makes this number very unlikely. He has limited marketing value. It just makes no sense at all, even by dumb irrational saudi standards…
Well even if benzema is on half of that, and I'd guess he's on more since kante is allegedly 2m a week, it still absolutely dwarfs the money china paid
None of the numbers make sense.
Kanté getting 100M is even less credible. Giving him up to 3 times his current net salary at Chelsea is the more likely scenario… Of course it is more money than China... China didn’t get 2 of the 4 active ballon d’Ors…
But China spent crazy money to buy the players from Europe. The Saudi clubs have so far mainly targeted high profile free agents.
There seemed to be a logic at least... Players getting 3/4/5 times their current net wages would be a coherent strategy. Just randomly throwing 100 M or 200M at these players is quite weird.
It is
4m a week is as comparable to 400k a week, as 400k a week is to 40k a week
So you're saying that when China wanted to raise awareness and improve the quality of their league by signing major European names on big salaries that were unheard of at the time, such as Hulk, Oscar, Fellani, Tevez, Ighalo, Gaitan, Carrasco, Paulinho, Mascherano, Ramires, Pelle, Demba Ba and Martins, that situation is in no way shape of form comparable to what the Saudis are doing right now?
Nah you're right, completely different situation because someone got paid £4m in Saudi Arabia and China was only paying £600k. Obviously there are zero similarities in these two scenarios. Silly me.