How Saudi Money Transformed the Transfer Window 🇸🇦
Plus Haaland enter his Prime and Roma's owner personally rescues Lukaku
Welcome to Athletic Interest.
The summer transfer window has shut, and it marks the end of an interesting few months. Saudi Arabia raided Europe’s clearance aisle, Mbappé flirted with Real Madrid, and Messi put MLS back on the map.
It’s a lot to digest, so allow us to take you on a deeper look at the numbers behind this incredible transfer window.
Which clubs spent the most?
Of course, it’s Chelsea. The Blues have already spent more than €1B in the 15 months since Todd Boehly took ownership of the club.
Chelsea also have the highest transfer income of the window, with a massive €264m coming in through player sales. While that doesn’t offset the large spend, it does reduce their bloated squad and is said to have saved the club millions on the wage bill.
The biggest surprise on this list is the inclusion of several Saudi clubs. The trio of Al-Nassr, Al Ahli, and Al-Hilal have spent a whopping €702m.
The most profitable club this summer has been Southampton, with the relegated side selling the majority of its best talent for a €155m profit. Barcelona also made a €102m profit this window.
Which leagues dominated the spending?
Again, it’s the English Premier League that leads the spending at €2.8b. This is a huge number and about €500m more than the league’s clubs spent last summer.
Thanks to the big-spending clubs mentioned above, the Saudi League has officially outspent both the Bundesliga and LaLiga. The total Saudi spending is actually 1867% higher than the previous window (last year, €43m total).
Two leagues at different stages of their development both spending incredible amounts of money.
What were the big transfers?
Both Arsenal and Chelsea broke the British transfer record when purchasing midfielders.
Neymar became the player with the highest collective transfer fee in history after his €90m Al-Hilal transfer brought his career total to €400m.
PSG spent their Neymar money pretty quickly, purchasing Randal Kolo Muani from Eintracht Frankfurt for €95m. Big shoes to fill for Kolo Muani.
Harry Kane also made a shock move from Tottenham to Bayern Munich for €100m. The striker was previously considered untouchable, and it is not common to see top older English players make the move to a foreign league.
Fellow Englishman Jude Bellingham is arguably the signing of the summer. His €103m move to Madrid made Dortmund about €70m in profit, and Bellingham has already hit the ground running for Madrid.
After such an eventful transfer window, there are still two key questions that remain.
Can Chelsea maintain this level of spending in future years? The club still needs to comply with strict FFP profit and loss rules and is still without European football.
Is Saudi Arabia’s spending splurge a one-off, or will it remain a force in the transfer market over the coming years? Clubs will likely be worried as it’s not just older players feeling the pull of Saudi money. 21-year-old Gabri Veiga was linked to Chelsea and Liverpool before choosing Al-Ahli.
🍎 Sports Business Bites
🌍 Ronaldo helps take the Saudi League global
With all this talk of Saudi Arabia taking over the transfer market, it’s easy to forget the original transfer that started all of this. Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Al-Nassr brought an insane level of attention to Saudi Arabian football, and it looks like this has been translated into some cold, hard cash.
A Saudi Pro League boss has told the media that the league is now shown in 140 countries, and broadcasting revenues have increased 650% since Ronaldo’s arrival.
Before Ronaldo, the Saudi Pro League had little to no international presence.
It’s hard to know what this means in terms of money. There are no official figures for the current or previous broadcasting income.
Some websites claim it was around €16m before Ronaldo arrived, but it’s unclear if this is, in fact, a reference to a one-off payment made to clubs by the Saudi government.
Getting an international audience is just step one of the Saudi league’s plan. The league is also trying to convince UEFA to allow the winner of the league to compete in future editions of the Champions League as a wildcard entry.
UEFA has publicly cooled this speculation and stated that only European clubs can enter the Champions League. Let’s see how this stance maintains as the Saudi League continues to grow.
🥤 Has Haaland entered his Prime?
The biggest deals of the summer haven’t just been in the transfer window. Prime Hydration, the drinks brand founded by Logan Paul and KSI, has partnered with some of the biggest names in football over the recent months. This includes becoming the hydration partners of both Bayern Munich and Barcelona (rumors are they gave eight bottles to Bayern but only two to Barcelona), and now they have just signed a new face of the brand…Erling Haaland.
So, why Haaland? Well, the Norwegian striker scores incredibly well with the younger demographics thanks to his impressive talent and unique personality.
This is exactly the market that Prime wants to hit as it expands out of North America and into Europe. Furthermore, the brand has come under a lot of criticism for the health of its ingredients recently; what better way to change the narrative than through high-profile sponsorships?
You can learn more about why Erling Haaland is a sponsor’s dream in our video:
🍷 NBA star makes it big in the Chinese wine market
James Harden had a little surprise this week. While on an Adidas-sponsored tour of China, the basketball star appeared on a livestream with a group of influencers to help sell bottles from his wine brand.
Harden normally sells a few cases of his wine per day, but on this particular livestream, he sold 10,000 bottles of wine in just 14 seconds. According to the state-owned tabloid Global Times, 5,000 orders were placed at US$60 for two bottles, netting Harden US$300,000.
You can see his surprised reaction here:
🛫 Roma’s owner flies in to rescue Lukaku
Many weird things happen during transfer negotiations. There are often arguments between club officials and families, and agents have been known to make outrageous demands, but we don’t often see the owner of the football club agree to personally fly the player to his new club.
Well, that’s what happened with Romelu Lukaku’s transfer to Roma. Lukaku was taken by private jet from England to Rome, and the plane was flown by Roma’s owner, Dan Friedkin. You can’t make this stuff up…
🎾 We leave you this week with a truly impressive hairstyle spotted at the U.S. Open.
In the words of the U.S. Open’s Twitter account, “That’s called a Fuzz Cut.”
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