THE Saudi Professional League (SPL) is causing a stir in football this summer, throwing its money around in a bid to attract more of the game’s global stars to the league.

The surge of spending, on wages even if not on transfer fees, comes on the back of four of the league’s biggest clubs being bought out by the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is also the majority owner at Newcastle United.

Earlier this month, PIF announced 75 per cent ownership in Saudi clubs al-Ittihad, al-Ahli, al-Nassr and al-Hilal, as part of the country’s Sports Clubs Investment and Privatisation Project.

This project itself is part of the larger Saudi Vision 2030, the aims of which appear to be to lessen the country’s reliance on oil exports and diversify investments. Coincidentally, the country may also bid to host the 2030 World Cup.

Despite being suddenly able to splash the cash on player transfers and wages, it was only a year ago that Fifpro, which represents professional footballers worldwide, was warning players against joining Saudi clubs after numerous incidents of contractual violations and unpaid wages.

Fifa’s dispute resolution chamber, a publicly available record of labour disputes and other compensation-related matters, is littered with cases against Saudi clubs for unpaid wages or fees.

In terms of the game itself, football is the national sport in Saudi Arabia and each of these teams has passionate followings.

The Saudi Arabian men’s team impressed at the recent World Cup when they defeated Argentina in the opening group game. It was the only game Argentina lost in the tournament as they went on to lift the trophy.

This momentum continued when al-Hilal reached the final of the Club World Cup earlier this year.

Forward Salem al-Dawsari contributed greatly to their semi-final upset of Brazilian side Flamengo, and it was he who scored the goal to defeat Argentina at the World Cup.

These Saudi sides are established teams with rich histories and existing fanbases. 

There is no reason why any teams from outside Europe should not be entitled to try to attract some of the game’s biggest names and best players if they can.

There have also been accusations that Saudi clubs are beginning to distort the transfer market, but this isn’t an issue that began with the SPL’s involvement.

If distortion can exist at all in a market which is seemingly so out of control anyway, it has already been distorted by European clubs.

There is much more going on at the top level of the game beyond the sport itself.

Football is regularly and increasingly used as a political or economic tool, and this is the case for Saudi Arabia which is now one of the biggest players in this arena as it mingles with Western capital on this political sporting stage.

When clubs are taken over by one owner, or added to a multiclub ownership model, they naturally lose some of their original identity. The character that made them so appealing in the first place.

Even though the non-profit foundations of al-Ittihad, al-Ahli, al-Nassr and al-Hilal retain 25 per cent ownership of these institutions, they will now become tools for PIFs diversifying of investments. It is way to a seat at the table.

Typical of investment funds and wealth funds globally, PIF already has its fingers in many pies, including in the English Premier League. 

The obvious one is Newcastle, which it owns. The less obvious one is Chelsea, a link which resurfaced when the PIF-owned Saudi clubs were linked with the transfer of numerous Chelsea players in the past month.

The west London club is looking to offload some players after a spending spree of its own in the past year under its new ownership.

Kalidou Koulibaly, Hakim Ziyech, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and Edouard Mendy have all attracted interest from SPL teams.

This has raised the issue of a possible conflict of interest and allegations that PIF may be helping Chelsea comply with FFP-type rules following its recent high levels of transfer spending.

Saudi Arabia and PIF are unlikely to be concerned about Chelsea as a football club, though, and whether or not they fall foul of financial fair play or profit and sustainability rules.

What they will care about is being involved in a positive fashion with Chelsea’s owners which includes the private equity firm Clearlake and Todd Boehly. 

The classic capitalist play of groups of very wealthy entities teaming up to make even more money or be more involved in such circles.

Chelsea are not the only Premier League club who will be looking to offload some players to Saudi Arabia, but their links to PIF have piqued interest.

We have been told there is nothing to see here. PIF merely invests “with” Clearlake, not “in” them!

The Premier League were satisfied that PIF had nothing to do with Chelsea’s ownership structure and checked at the time of the takeover that there were no conflicts of interest.

The nature of these private investments means the exact details and amounts invested can be conveniently murky. Any investigations into it will result in maybes, probablys and probably nots, with not many cast-iron conclusions.

Numerous reports have confirmed that PIF invests with Clearlake, though. Matt Hughes of Sportsmail revealed last year that it was to the tune of “billions of pounds of assets,” but when it comes to these types of investments, it will be no more than 5 per cent.

There will be no controlling stake, and it can indeed be passed off as investment “with,” rather than investment “in.” 

But the key thing at these levels of investment is as much about the establishment of relationships and status, as the money invested or the returns on it.

On top of this, in 2022, PIF invested $900 million in partnership with a real estate investment firm called Cain International into the Aman Group of luxury hotels and “branded residences.”

Cain International was founded by, and is run by, Chelsea co-owners Boehly and Jonathan Goldstein.

So amid all the reasons for this being nothing to worry about in straight-up business and financial terms, which will be enough to satisfy the Premier League, there are also clear links between PIF and Chelsea.

They can be dismissed as capitalism doing what capitalism does (as if there is nothing wrong with this anyway) while Chelsea’s links with PIF and the idea they will be helping the club avoid FFP sanctions have been laughed off by some experts as a conspiracy.

On a business and financial level, the link can be set aside as the “normal” practice of a sovereign wealth fund investing with a private equity firm. They do this all the time.

Chelsea the football club doesn’t really matter to PIF. After all, it already has its own club in Newcastle and now several back home.

It could be Chelsea or anywhere, Liverpool or Roma. What does matter is that it initiates a relationship with a private-equity company and a chairman of a football club at the top level of the game.

It shows how relatively small the circle of big money is. This can then create conflicts of interest or at least accusations of such, obvious or not, when the actors within this circle do business with each other.

This is increasingly becoming an issue across the game, not just with PIF and Chelsea, and not just with Saudi Arabia and England.

There are far more obvious examples of conflicts of interest in football such as the Red Bull group of clubs.

Two Red Bull teams, RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg, regularly transfer players from one to the other and participate in the same Uefa competitions. 

They even played each other in the 2018/19 Europa League group stage. They worked their way around it by changing the ownership structure enough to satisfy Uefa. We are again told there is nothing to see here.

Chelsea and Boehly themselves have made no secret of their own plans to build a multiclub model, while other clubs, including Man City and Brighton, are already part of something similar on various scales.

Football is reflecting many other areas where an increasingly small number of rich companies or funds own and control an increasingly large amount of things.

Being part of that small number has advantages beyond the money itself, whether these are reputational, political or opening up avenues to other investments.

It is this group that the richest, from Persian Gulf states to US capital, want to be a part of. 

Top-level football is now part of a diversified investment plan, a reputation management tool, and a way into wealthy, influential circles. Today, football monopoly is becoming a fact.