Arab sheiks invested in football: they buy stars for crazy money

News of the last days

Saudi Pro League clubs are considering buying the first stars of world football – Paris Saint-Germain’s Messi, Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema and Luka Modric. Other acquisitions are also possible, so far in the form of rumors discussed in the media and telegram channels. Because the leadership of the Arab country wants each of the top four clubs in the championship to have its own superstar. Ready to help financially.

But what about the stars themselves?

Messi will no longer be staying at PSG, whose management has said it will not renew the contract with the world champion ending this summer. And although the footballer himself claims that his goal is to return to Barcelona, ​​but the other day he went to Saudi Arabia, allegedly on vacation with his wife. And he met with the owners of Al-Hilal, who have long been saying that they are ready to offer Messi twice as much as Ronaldo at Al-Nasr – $ 400 million. Moreover, the Argentinean did not coordinate this vacation trip with his current team. For which he was suspended from games and training for two weeks. And his father has now flown to the United States for negotiations with the management of the Inter Miami club.

Frenchman Karim Benzema has signed a new contract with Real Madrid until the summer of 2024. Although he himself admits that his era at the club, where he has been playing since 2009, is coming to an end, Real Madrid need young blood in attack. The player is already seriously targeted by Al-Ittihad, who will try to get the player as soon as possible.

As for Luka Modric, his contract with Real Madrid ends this summer. And although the midfielder is not averse to dusting in Madrid for another season, it all depends on the owners of the team. In addition, the Croatian wants to buy Al-Ahly.

And there is also Messi’s teammate at PSG Brazilian Neymar. Fans of the Paris team staged a veritable demonstration outside the club’s office the other day, demanding PSG president and owner Nasser al-Khelaifi, a Qatari businessman, to sell him along with Messi and Italian midfielder Marco Verratti. They sang hurtful songs, burned smoke bombs – everything, like the Parisians have done in recent months.

Why such details? You’ll soon find out.

“Golden Calf” Ronaldo

First, about the pleasant. About money.

Al-Nasr and Portugal striker (so far) Ronaldo has become the highest paid athlete in 2023 according to Forbes magazine. His total income for the year was $136 million. 46 million were salaries, another 90 million were brought by sponsorship and advertising contracts. Messi, by the way, is in second place with an income of 130 million dollars.

Now for the sad part: Cristiano is not doing well with football. After moving to the Arab club, as MK already wrote, he gradually stopped scoring, demanded to fire the coach (and he was fired), and had a fight with the new coach. And now, in general, as the media write, the 38-year-old player wants to leave Al-Nasr and return to Real Madrid. Adaptation failed, it’s time to go to Europe. Only in “Real” is unlikely to wait for him. Because they want young blood, not sour Portuguese port. And the Arabs themselves are unlikely to let Ronaldo go. His contract with Al-Nasr is not about football, it’s about business. And the Arabs know how to do business.

When the captain of the Portuguese national team moved from Manchester United to Al Nasr in scandal, fans and the media savored his $ 200 million salary, marveling at the generosity of the Arabs. But there is no generosity here – only a cold and accurate calculation. Indeed, along with Ronaldo, the new club got all its sponsors, all its subscribers in social networks. Which he has more than any other athlete. So Al-Nasr definitely didn’t stay in the loser.

And here it is interesting to talk not about why and for what hundreds of millions clubs from Saudi Arabia buy football stars, but why they actually do it. “MK”, ​​by the way, has already written about this more than once. But now the puzzle is finally coming together.

Football as a business

Having earned and still continuing to earn billions of dollars on oil, the leaders of the Arab countries understand that sooner or later the “black gold” will end. So, you need to think about how and where to invest your money. In addition to the development of its own infrastructure, education system, high-tech industries, tourism and other things, part of the money is invested in highly liquid speculative assets. Able to bring profit quickly enough.

And one of such highly liquid speculative assets in the 21st century has become European football clubs and football stars.

Among the clubs out of competition are the teams of the English Premier League. The cost and capitalization of which, regardless of sports results, is growing by leaps and bounds.

The traditional annual study “Football Money League” published on January 19 by the authoritative international consulting agency Deloitte serves as confirmation. In the 2021/2022 season, as in the previous season, Manchester City, owned by the Emirati sports holding City Football Group Limited, is in first place. He has earned over $790 million. Real Madrid is second with over $772 million. Closes the top three “Liverpool” with an indicator of 760 million. In fourth place is Manchester United with 745 million. In total, the list of the 20 most profitable clubs in English football also includes Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, West Ham United, Leicester City, Leeds United, Everton and Newcastle United.

There are twenty teams in the Premier League. And only four of them belong to the full subjects of His Majesty Charles III. Three more clubs – West Ham, Fulham and Everton – seem to be English, but not quite. But the remaining fourteen are owned by investment funds and billionaires from the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, China, Greece, Egypt, Italy and even Serbia.

And this is very much disliked by British fans, the leadership of the Premier League, and most importantly, the British government. Because besides the Premier League, there are nine or ten professional leagues that rank lower. And there reigns poverty and despondency. At the end of 2022, three dozen teams at once turned to the government and the leadership of the Premier League with an ultimatum: “If you don’t help, we will go bankrupt, leaving the people without their favorite fun.” And it had its effect.

Back in 2021, England decided to create an independent football regulatory body, which should monitor who, how and with what money buys English clubs and how they then manage them. Moreover, fans are also planned to be included in the leadership of this regulator. It was planned that this regulator would be created in 2022, but due to leapfrog with prime ministers, the issue hung. Before Rishi Sunak came to power. Which, during his election campaign in the summer of 2022, promised to speed up the creation of the regulator. Moreover, Charles III himself, while still Prince Charles, promised to speed up the creation of a new oversight body for English football. And this seems to have changed the attitude of Arab investors towards their strategy of making money from this sport.

How to spend a billion wisely

No, of course, Arab investment funds and individual billionaires have not given up on buying English teams. Now the bidding for Manchester United is going on – its owners, the American family of billionaire Glazers, are still hoping to bargain for a couple of extra billions for one of the most popular clubs in the world, and the names of various Arab companies now and then flash in the press among potential buyers. But, being very experienced investors, the representatives of the Arab world understand that the rules of the game are changing. Moreover, on the example of the confiscation of Chelsea (no other way to say it) from the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, they saw that the rules can be changed at all arbitrarily, as the left heel of the British establishment wants. And investing money where it can be taken away is risky.

Therefore, if the mountain does not go to Mohammed, then he himself can approach it. Therefore, they buy football stars in the Saudi Pro League for absolutely crazy money – they have their own rules in their house. And they definitely won’t go to waste. So buying the best players in Al-Nasr, Al-Hilal, Al Ittihad and Al-Ahly is not about the development of football, it’s about business. Of course, this will also help the development of football to some extent, but indirectly. After all, the championship of Saudi Arabia is not the most interesting spectacle, so that the fans do not forget about Messi and Ronaldo, the money will be invested in television, and in advertising, and in the production of football paraphernalia and souvenirs. Which, in general, is also good.

It remains only to understand – and what is it to us? Perhaps some piece of the pie will fall to us in one form or another. Yes, and there is something to learn – really something, but the Arabs know how to trade.