Saudi Arabia made spectacular investments in the men’s football transfer market this summer, moving into second place behind England as the biggest spenders, according to a report published by FIFA on Friday.
Saudi clubs, who lured Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema, midfielder Fabinho and winger Sadio Mané, paid out $875.4 million (€817 million) between 1 June and 1 September.
This summer, the kingdom’s teams have "contributed to 14% of spending on the transfer market," FIFA calculates, pointing out that "this is the first time that clubs from a confederation other than UEFA have broken the 10% barrier."
On Friday, another report published by Deloitte put spending at $957 million – around €894 million.
Despite its growing appetite, the Saudi Professional League remains well behind the English Premier League, which is by far the richest in the world, having recruited players for $1.98 billion (€1.85 billion) this summer. Here too, Deloitte reported a higher figure of €2.74 billion euros.
Yet Saudi Arabia is still ahead of clubs from France ($859.7 million), Germany ($762.4 million), Italy ($711 million dollars) and Spain ($405.6 million).
On the sellers’ side, it was the German clubs that accumulated the most transfer fees, with $1.11 billion – the first revenues in excess of $1 billion during the summer transfer market within a single football federation.
In total, transfer fees in men’s football set a new record, climbing 47.2% to $7.36 billion compared with the same period in 2022, with “more than 10,000 transfers completed” and $696.6 million in commissions accumulated by agents.
The rise also continues in women’s football, albeit with incomparable figures: “829 movements, 66 of which for compensation”, for a sum more than double that of the summer of 2022, with three million dollars paid.
In December 2022, Cristiano Ronaldo signed for Saudi Professional League (SPL) club Al Nassr on a two-and-a-half-year contract, reportedly worth more than $200m a year.
