Who moved to Saudi Arabia this summer – and what does it reveal about the Pro League?

When NASA released images of Sakaka from the International Space Station in December 2020, you could almost have thought you were staring at the moon.

The weathered roofs of the old buildings in the oasis city in Saudi Arabia were almost indistinguishable from the rutted landscape. Only upon closer inspection did you see signs of modernity.

Sakaka, once part of a caravan route in the far north of the country, is now home to the kingdom’s emerging renewable energy sector, which explains the sharp fragments of light bouncing off a field of solar panels.

The $320m (£243m) project, which was funded mainly by private investment, was announced through the state in 2018 and was expected to create 400 new jobs in the remote and impoverished Al Jouf region.

When the plant opened three years later, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described the development as a “pivotal moment” for Saudi Arabia’s renewable energy plans, with seven more similar facilities to follow.

Sakaka is central to Vision 2030, Salman’s attempt to achieve sustainability as Saudi Arabia becomes less dependent on oil.

Football is part of the same brochure. Saudi Arabia says it is opening up, it wants tourism and it will host the World Cup in 2034.

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Since the beginning of last year, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) has been the majority owner of four of the country’s Saudi Pro League teams – Al Ahli, Al Hilal, Al Ittihad and Al Nassr – and has also spent a large portion of the nearly $1 billion (£760 million) it has committed to investing in foreign players in 2023.

While 2023 will go down in history as the year that saw Cristiano Ronaldo (Al Nassr), Neymar (Al Hilal), Karim Benzema (Al Ittihad) and Jordan Henderson (Al Ettifaq; he terminated his contract in January and joined Ajax) leave Europe for lucrative contracts in the Saudi Pro League, transfer spending in 2024 was less extravagant, with a total outlay of around $250m (£190m).

One of the contributors to that figure was the modest $250,000 (£190,000) transfer fee that Brad Young transferred from Cymru League champions The New Saints (TNS) to Sakaka-based Saudi Pro League club Al Orobah at the end of the transfer window.

Brad Young was a surprise signing for Saudi Arabia (Ben Roberts Photo/Getty Images)

You could argue that any thriving city needs a focus on sport to help its people thrive. This is one of the reasons why Birmingham native Young is swapping his club for one on the Welsh-English border, rather than one a relatively short distance from the Saudi-Iraqi border.

Al Orobah’s recruitment approach in recent months provides a useful starting point for analysis of the 2024 Saudi Pro League.

While many of Saudi Arabia’s top clubs are littered with foreigners on long-term contracts, that has not been the case for Al Orobah since their promotion in May, nor for Al Qadsiah, another promoted club based in Khobar, just south of Dammam, where Steven Gerrard coaches Al Ettifaq on Saudi Arabia’s east coast.

Effectively, both Al Orobah and Al Qadsiah could start again. Al Orobah started the summer by releasing each of their eight foreign players, including Vurnon Anita, who previously played 153 games for Ajax and 155 games for Newcastle United in his career. Anita is now 35 and Al Orobah wanted fresher options.

To prepare for the top division, they have brought in a Portuguese manager in Alvaro Pacheco, who played just four games in his previous role at Vasco da Gama in Brazil, and ten new foreign players, including former West Ham United captain Kurt Zouma, who left on loan for the United Arab Emirates and failed to progress earlier in the transfer window, and Johann Berg Gudmundsson, whose contract expires after leaving Burnley.

Under the new rules, clubs will be allowed to sign eight non-Saudi players with no age limit, as well as two non-Saudi players born in 2003 or later, “to boost investment in young talent,” according to a statement published by the Saudi Pro League in December 2023.

Young, born in January 2003, falls somewhere in this category. Four years ago, while still at Aston Villa, he was recovering in a Birmingham hospital after being stabbed three times while resisting an attempted robbery in a Solihull park. After his sacking from Villa last summer, he went on to win the Cymru Premier League’s Golden Boot after scoring 22 goals in 25 games for TNS.

While it may seem odd that he would attract interest from perhaps the world’s most ambitious new league, agents representing Saudi clubs were present at Llanelli’s Stebonheath Park in March when the Wales C team beat their English counterparts 1-0. Although Young did not play in that match, it showed just how far some Saudi clubs were prepared to go.

Iceland international Gudmundsson swapped Burnley for Sakaka (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

When Young scored twice on his European debut for TNS in their 3-0 Champions League first qualifying round win over Montenegro’s FK Decic, Saudi Arabia’s attention only grew.

However, Young would not be the first Saudi signing for a Welsh club in the summer of 2024. That honour went to Andy Firth, a 27-year-old goalkeeper from Connah’s Quay Nomads, formerly of Liverpool and Rangers, who moved to Al Ettifaq in June to take up a coaching position and work alongside Gerrard.

Al Qadsiah restructured the squad with some high-profile signings, although they did not spend as much money as some agents thought.

This time last year, another Liverpool legend, Robbie Fowler, was in charge of Al Qadsiah but was sacked when the team were top of the league. His replacement, Michel, led the team to promotion, after which the club – like Al Orobah – dropped all of its foreign players and replaced them with eight new signings plus one “born in 2003” recruit.

Former Arsenal striker Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang and Real Madrid’s Champions League-winning defender Nacho were the biggest names recruited by Al Qadsiah, which is not owned by PIF but is funded by oil company Aramco. But Al Qadsiah’s most expensive signing was Ezequiel Fernandez from Boca Juniors for $23m (£17.5m), an emerging midfielder who played for Argentina at the Olympics.

Agents in Europe had expected the window in Saudi Arabia to be a lot cooler than last summer, for one obvious reason: there was a willingness to spend money, but in the end most teams already had a good supply of foreign players and were struggling to sell them. Some clubs had foreign players returning from loans elsewhere. All of this contributed to clubs having to sell before they could enter the market.

For example, Al Ahli, one of the two big teams in Jeddah, had to find a buyer for former Newcastle United striker Allan Saint-Maximin before they could bring anyone in. Once he was loaned to Fenerbahce, they were able to redouble their efforts to sign Ivan Toney from Brentford.

Across town, Al Ittihad were able to sign Steven Bergwijn from Ajax after Portuguese winger Jota was sold to Rennes for a loss of £15m. The move prompted Dutch coach Ronald Koeman to “close the book” on the 26-year-old’s international career amid concerns about competition in the Saudi Arabian league.

Bergwijn may have jeopardized his international career by moving to Saudi Arabia (John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Riyadh-based Al Shabab spent most of the summer trying to sell Senegalese forward Habib Diallo, a record £20 million signing from Strasbourg in 2023. Diallo’s story serves as a case study in the challenges Saudi clubs face when it comes to money. Although Al Shabab wanted to sell the player, his salary limited the number of potential European buyers unless they continued to contribute a substantial percentage of his wages. Ultimately, Diallo remained in the country by signing a loan deal with Damac, which allowed Al Shabab to complete the purchase of Daniel Podence from Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Of the other European players arriving in Saudi Arabia this summer, perhaps only Mohamed Simakan and Joao Cancelo are anywhere near their peak. Simakan, a 24-year-old defender previously at RB Leipzig, moved to Al Nassr for €35 million (£29.5 million), where he was joined by Brazilian Angelo in a deal that allowed Chelsea to make a £5.5 million profit on a winger who never played for the club.

Cancelo’s €25m (£21m) move from Manchester City to Al Hilal wasn’t the biggest deal pulled off by the Riyadh club, however, who signed Brazilian forward Marcos Leonardo from Benfica for €40m (£33.7m). At the other end of the scale, former Manchester United defender Chris Smalling agreed to leave Roma for Al Fayha on a free transfer.

The next big tranche of spending is expected to come in the summer of 2026, as many foreign players reach the end of their three-year contracts. However, next summer could also see some newly promoted teams attack the market again, similar to Al Orobah and Al Qadsiah.

A likely candidate is Neom SC, a second division club formerly known as Al Suqoor. They changed their identity late last year in preparation for a move to the futuristic city being built in the desert of the same name, at an estimated cost of $1.5 trillion.

Among Neom’s summer signings was West Bromwich Albion defender Ahmed Hegazy, while it remains to be seen whether his Egyptian international Mohamed Salah will join him in Saudi Arabia for the next year or two.

The Kingdom can certainly afford Salah, but the question is when a club from the Saudi Pro League can make the move and whether he enjoys playing at a level that other clubs are fishing in the Welsh rivers.

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(Top photos: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Brad Young; Getty Images)