We all remember in 2016 when Chinese league clubs (Chinese Super League) started investing in signing players with some name offering higher wages compared to other leagues.
At the moment we are seeing the same thing happen in the Saudi league (Saudi Pro League) which is making waves, including former English internationals requesting that the Premier League block transfers from English clubs to Saudi clubs.
Clearly, the Premier League will not and cannot do something like that, otherwise it would close the door to sponsorships from Saudi companies, as well as the sheiks would no longer be interested in buying English clubs, as we have seen happen, because in the minds of the Saudis, the Premier League did not accept gladly the Saudis.
Let's get to the question that many people want to know:
Will the same thing happen in Arabia as in China? That was fire of sight and nowadays, nobody talks about this league anymore.
Let's analyze some data, so we can compare the two.
Stadiums
In the Chinese Super League, in 2016, we could find everything from quality and modern stadiums to more modest and old stadiums.
The three biggest and most important clubs had modern stadiums with a capacity of around 30,000 to 40,000 spectators. These stadiums were the Workers' Stadium in Beijing, the Yuexiushan Stadium in Guangzhou and the Olympic Stadium in Shenyang.
Most clubs shared stadiums with other sports or events.
In the case of Arabia, there is also everything.
An interesting fact is that there are stadiums shared by clubs, in the same way as what happens with the stadium of Inter Milan and Ac Milan (the King Fahd International stadium is shared between Al Hilal and Al-Shabab and the King Abdullah stadium Sports City is shared between Al.Ahli and AL-Ittihad).
In terms of capacity, we have stadiums with all types of capacity, from 67,000 to 500 people.
Transfers
The Chinese league in 2016 spent around 400 million euros on transfers, and the most famous names were:
- Carlos Tevez;
- Hulk;
- Oscar;
- Axel Witsel;
On the other hand, the Saudi league has spent, so far, around 145 million euros and managed to sign big names like:
- Edouard Mendy (ex-Chelsea);
- Roberto Firmino (former Liverpool);
- Karim Benzema (former Real Madrid);
- N'Golo Kanté (ex-Chelsea);
- Marcelo Brozovic (former Inter);
- Rúben Neves (ex-Wolves);
- Kalidou Koulibaly (former Chelsea);
We can't forget about Cristiano Ronaldo, who went to the Saudi league in the middle of last season and started to give visibility to it.
In short, it seems to me that this situation in the Saudi league will be different from what happened in the Chinese league.
One of the points is related to the fact that in Saudi Arabia there is more money for these investments and to invest in improving sports infrastructure.
The other point is the names that the Saudi league is hiring, as these are world references and that all clubs in Europe would like to have, while in the Chinese league the big signings were 1 player who was at the end of his career, 2 players from the Russian league and Oscar from the Premier League.
None of us has a crystal ball to guess whether the Saudi league will succeed and start to be the biggest reference outside the old European continent or if this is just a fire in sight ½ seasons from now we will stop hearing about this league as it happened with the league Chinese.
We can only wait and see what happens.