Saudi Sovereign fund

domalino said:
I feel like people just start regurgiating cliches when this topic comes up.

Football is massive in Arab countries and has been 100 years going back to British occupation. It is embedded in the culture. Al Ittihad was founded in 1927, within 20 years of many big European clubs.

As for competitive, they're bringing in 60 players this year, more than enough to make it competitive, and with the government basically overseeing the whole thing they can control the relative strength of the sides to create competition, similar to how US sports are configured from the ground up to enforce level competition.
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It’ll still be shite and have virtually zero interest outside of Saudi, will just go the same way as the Chinese League. It’s also oppressively hot apart from November to February to play football, I’ve been in the region in March and I couldn’t stand the heat, it just doesn’t lend itself to a good level of football and players will only go there for the cash, I have a feeling that Neves and Kante will probably stay for around a year and be completely bored by the country.
 
domalino said:
I feel like people just start regurgiating cliches when this topic comes up.

Football is massive in Arab countries and has been 100 years going back to British occupation. It is embedded in the culture. Al Ittihad was founded in 1927, within 20 years of many big European clubs.

As for competitive, they're bringing in 60 players this year, more than enough to make it competitive, and with the government basically overseeing the whole thing they can control the relative strength of the sides to create competition, similar to how US sports are configured from the ground up to enforce level competition.
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I know how big Football is in Arab countries all I am arguing that as a league it won't really take off despite bring in superstars it's been tried before

It really is better to go for organic growth (as seems to be happening in the US)
 
Ducado said:
I know how big Football is in Arab countries all I am arguing that as a league it won't really take off despite bring in superstars it's been tried before

It really is better to go for organic growth (as seems to be happening in the US)
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It's been tried before very successfully in the USA and Japan which were both founded on superstars being brought over.


I've yet to hear any sound reasons why this will fail. Everything just comes down to "China failed". That's not a reason!
 
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domalino said:
It's been tried before very successfully in the USA and Japan which were both founded on superstars being brought over.


I've yet to hear any sound reasons why this will fail. Everything just comes down to "China failed". That's not a reason!
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Exactly right. China has been the exception rather than the rule, in growth markets. USA, Japan, Australia and India all followed the big star blueprint and it kicked off growth at all levels and in all aspects of the game. USA and Japan have been at it longer than Oz and India and as such are further along, but the A-League and ISL are developing in a similar way at the relative stage they’re at. They’ll catch up to where the US and Japan are now, but by then US and Japan should be at a higher level too. Saudi is like the same blueprint but on steroids, owing to the far greater finances involved, and also partly owing to the aims of the KSA in all of this. As such, they should expect a faster development rate, but other than that basically the same thing.

There is a reason for the failure in China, too – the initial push in China was driven by a sudden interest in football from Xi Jingping… which ended in just as sudden a fashion as it started. He performed a massive political U-turn on the sport and the CCP’s strategy towards it, kneecapping the Chinese football pyramid.

MBS isn’t likely to make the same U-turn, because he has different motives, and a different style of governance.
 
domalino said:
It's been tried before very successfully in the USA and Japan which were both founded on superstars being brought over.


I've yet to hear any sound reasons why this will fail. Everything just comes down to "China failed". That's not a reason!
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It is about sustainability. Saudi has massive wealth and so can keep going like this for a long time but not for ever. The Saudi authorities recognise this with their long term plan being to privatise the clubs and encourage them to be self sustaining.
Saudi has huge investment needs and plans as they negotiate an exit from oil. So they can’t prop up football for ever to the detriment of something else in diversification plans.
To be successful long term they certainly need to create income streams that they currently lack: bigger crowds (incl women?), worldwide tv, sponsorship, on line activities (some cultural problems there), memorabilia etc etc.
So their current tactics are just the start, the pump primer. It will be fascinating to see how they negotiate their way through when you can guarantee there will be opposition from Europe and the U.S.
Contrast this with AbuDhabi tactic of taking their football investment all round the world but is Newcastle just the tip of the iceberg?
 
kippaxwarrior said:
Well rat boy Neville has piped up about this and said The Premier League should block transfers to The Saudi League.
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And just how does he suggest the premier league do that?LOL. Further Does Gary Chuckle have an opinion on the scum being sponsored by the Saudis for the last 15 years?
 
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