Saudi Arabian football club Al-Hilal confirmed the signing of Serbian midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic for around 40 million euros on Wednesday. Milinkovic-Savic had been one of the best midfielders in Serie A in recent seasons and at the age of 28, therefore at the height of his career, many thought he would go to play for a big European team, also considering his contract with Lazio. Instead, he accepted a very rich three-year contract in Saudi Arabia, as dozens of players are doing this summer.
Unlike the many purchases made so far, Milinkovic-Savic’s is particularly significant because it concerns neither a player at the end of his career nor a second tier player, but one of the most prominent in Serie A, who however still lacked something to be considered among the best in the world in his role. By agreeing to go and play in Saudi Arabia Milinkovic-Savic has in a certain sense reduced his career, given that in the coming years he will continue to play in secondary contexts.
At Al-Hilal, he will find former Napoli and Chelsea defender Kalidou Koulibaly, Portuguese midfielder Ruben Neves, former Porto striker Moussa Marega and Portuguese Jorge Jesus as coach. The team is based in Riyadh and is the most successful in the history of the Saudi championship, with 18 national titles won from 1977 to today.
Due to its importance, Al-Hilal is also one of the four teams that have recently come under the direct control of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the investment fund of the Saudi government, which controls them by 75 per cent. The others are Al-Ittihad, Al Nassr and Al-Ahli, not surprisingly the most active in this summer window of the transfer market. These four teams, into which the greatest investments will flow, will be the ones that will try to obtain their relevance also in the international arena, and therefore to represent Saudi Arabia outside the Arabian peninsula.
Suits you, Sergej! 💙#AlHilal 🤩 pic.twitter.com/rv2z1VzkDl
— AlHilal Saudi Club (@Alhilal_EN) July 12, 2023
Al-Ittihad, who won the last league title, are the new team of reigning Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema and world champion N’Golo Kanté. Al Nassr, on the other hand, is the team that paved the way for major investments by Saudi clubs in football by purchasing Cristiano Ronaldo at the beginning of the year. In recent weeks he has also signed Inter midfielder Marcelo Brozovic – another who could have played for a long time at a high level in Europe – and former Napoli goalkeeper David Ospina. The former Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy and the former Liverpool striker Roberto Firmino play at Al-Ahli.
In addition to the most famous players, the Saudi teams are also signing many of the so-called second tier, which serve to raise the average level of a league made up almost entirely of Saudi players until a few months ago. And then coaches, trainers and managers with experience in Europe who will have to manage these investments on the field, as in the case of Michael Emenalo, former technical director of Chelsea hired by the Saudi Pro League to oversee the growth of the championship.
So far, this moment of expansion of Saudi football has been compared to other similar phenomena seen in recent years, particularly in China, where for years the local teams have incurred enormous expenses to make themselves heard by buying European and South American players. Most of them were players at the end of their careers, but among them there were also players not yet thirty attracted by big contracts. However, this period of the Chinese championship lasted only a few years before the government decided, simultaneously with the pandemic, to significantly downsize it.
The situation in Saudi Arabia is still difficult to pinpoint. The investments have just begun, the championship is still at a standstill (it follows the trend of the European ones, from August to May) and the last one played was still the old and irrelevant local version. The hypotheses or forecasts on where the championship will be in a few years are therefore many and rather undefined. There are those who argue, for example, that this busy period of large investments is actually motivated by tax issues, given that foreign citizens who move to Saudi Arabia need to reside there for about six months before obtaining full tax exemption provided for foreigners.
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