In the past 18 months, FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Center has heard 21 cases filed by players against Saudi clubs, with claims ranging from unfair contract termination to non-payment of wages, according to The Athletic. Meanwhile, the Saudi Pro League has already had its share of turbulence. In 2022, the league’s clubs cumulatively spent just shy of $30 million on transfers. China’s economy faltered, investor interest dried up, sponsors and viewers diminished, clubs struggled with wage bills, and many foreign players and coaches quit, partly because of strict Covid-19 policies. But after the better part of a decade, Xi Jinping’s grand soccer dream has become a nightmare. The Chinese Super League is a familiar cautionary tale: Its clubs spent more than $1 billion on transfers during 20, according to Transfermarkt, to bring stars such as Brazil’s Oscar and Hulk as well as Argentina’s Carlos Tevez to its burgeoning league. While definitive contract information, including leaked documents and public filings, does occasionally emerge, soccer insiders suggest that some of the reported figures are educated guesses, sometimes strung together from intermediaries with limited involvement in the respective deals.īut if self-sustaining revenues are the goal, the Saudi Pro League clearly needs a more viable economic model. (In a recent interview with Fox News, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the PIF’s chairman, doubled down on that reason: “If sportswashing is going to increase my GDP by one percent, then I will continue doing sportswashing.”) Or these stratospheric salary numbers could simply be used to entice more players to play against lesser competition in Saudi Arabia. That could be to soften reputational damage for playing in a country that has been accused of sportswashing to distract from its human rights record. ![]() Forbes spoke with more than a dozen industry insiders to refine these contract estimates, and there is a strong consensus that some public reports of soccer salaries may be inflated. ![]() The Saudis are notoriously opaque when it comes to their business dealings, especially with spending that seems to defy business logic.
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