WHY SAUDI OVER PREMIER LEAGUE

Football is far from perfect but it is a thing we love. It has existed in its present form for more than a century and a half. It has its rituals and its routines. It has taken on a cultural significance way beyond what is reasonable. It is a way for parents to commune with children, for exiles to maintain their links to home, a source of pride and identity for areas otherwise left behind. It lubricates the cogs of social interaction. It is everywhere: on televisions, on radios, on phones, in background conversations in offices and pubs and schools.

And it is under threat – at least in the form in which we recognise it.

It’s not just the Saudis. It’s not just nation states or their public investment funds. It’s also private equity, any of the investors whose business at the club is not the protection of a vital community asset

But it’s worse when it’s a state that murdered Jamal Khashoggi, that jailed and allegedly tortured Loujain al-Hathloul, that in 2022 carried out 81 executions in 24 hours for crimes including “deviant beliefs”. And it’s worse when it’s the Saudis because they have so much more money than anybody else. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund may have invested at least $6bn in sport since the beginning of 2021 but, in the last week of June, the Saudi government signed contracts worth $18bn.

All of this is only part of Vision 2030, a $7trillion project to diversify the economy that includes vast infrastructure projects such as The Line, part of the planned Neom area in the desert, as well as investment in a range of sports including golf, Formula One, boxing, tennis, cricket and esports.

far better to be known for trying to sign Kylian Mbappé than for dismembering a journalist in an embassy.

Richard Masters, the Premier League’s chief executive, insisted on Monday that he “wouldn’t be too concerned” by the growing Saudi influence over football, which makes you wonder just what would concern him.

It is standard practice for a league that is looking to elevate itself to sign ageing stars: it is what happened in Japan, Australia, India and China and continues to happen in the United States. Even the Premier League started off that way before mammoth broadcasting deals allowed its clubs to dominate the market.

But the Saudi Pro League is different because there does not appear to be any thought of balancing the books: once a certain credibility is established, there is no reason why stars at their peak should not follow. That’s why Al-Hilal’s huge offer for Mbappé made a certain warped sense as a means of grabbing the world’s attention.

That Jordan Henderson, previously such an advocate of LGBTQ+ rights, can be hired suggests how pretty much everybody can be bought; the welcome video put out by his new club Al-Ettifaq (not one of those owned directly by the PIF) turned his rainbow armband black and white, which seemed a pretty good metaphor both for his reputation and the impact in football as a whole.