Saudi clubs could be winning the Champions League in a few years… Gerrard and Henderson show every man has his price
YOU can either laugh at the brazen hypocrisy or cry over the horrific human-rights abuses.
You can shake your head ruefully at the confirmation that extremely rich men are even more motivated by money than the rest of us.
And you can wonder about the precise motivations of those bankrolling Saudi Arabia’s invasion of elite football.
But you cannot deny the major impact that a great gush of Saudi oil money will have on the Premier League.
Steven Gerrard gave us the biggest belly laugh so far when he claimed that the “family feeling” of his new Saudi club Al-Ettifaq was a huge motivation in his agreeing to take over.
Not, of course, the fact that a bloke who had failed miserably at Aston Villa was becoming the fourth highest-paid manager on Earth with an annual salary of £15.2million.
Perhaps Gerrard meant that he and his family will be based a stone’s throw away from Bahrain, the party capital of the Middle East — which might help them settle into a kingdom where alcohol is strictly banned.
The nearby second-tier Saudi club managed by Robbie Fowler is also conveniently located near a bridge to Bahrain’s westernised delights.
Gerrard is likely to be joined by Liverpool skipper Jordan Henderson, an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ+ rights who now seems ready to accept vast piles of cash from a country in which same-sex relationships are criminalised and gay people are often imprisoned or even executed.
If Henderson completes his proposed move, he will doubtless be handed one of the laughable PR hymn sheets on how to answer questions on human-rights abuses, overseen by the Saudis’ well-heeled stooge-in-chief Amanda Staveley.
BETTING SPECIAL – BEST SPORTS BETTING APPS IN THE UK
These were among the documents unearthed by a US Senate hearing into the Saudi merger/takeover of golf’s PGA Tour.
High-profile golf figures were briefed on precisely what meaningless flannel they should spout if asked about Saudi links to the 9/11 attacks, the murder and dismemberment of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi or the repression of women, gays and many other groups.
Apparently, if Saudi’s sporting patsies keep saying things like “united front” and “moving forward”, journalists and the public will say, “OK, nothing to see here,” and accept their grubby carve-ups.
The capitulation of Gerrard, and possibly Henderson are grimly predictable and the criticism of both men is straightforward.
Naked greed and two-facedness are nothing new in football or wider life.
But beyond the obvious, the take-off of the Saudi Pro League throws up a host of interesting, and contrasting, issues for England’s top-flight clubs.
For Chelsea, it’s been a boon in helping them comply with FFP requirements.
After pebble-dashing the transfer market with £600m during Todd Boehly’s first two transfer windows, the Blues have suddenly been able to flog Kalidou Koulibaly, Edouard Mendy and probably Hakim Ziyech to Saudi clubs.
There have been questions about whether Boehly’s consortium has any Saudi funding.
But whether they do or don’t, the Pro League is a gold-plated dustbin in which to off-load unwanted high-earners in a league where money is no object and big names are craved.
For smaller Premier League clubs, Saudi money is a serious potential problem.
After an excellent tenth-placed finish last season, Fulham’s summer has been seriously hampered by ongoing Saudi efforts to snare manager Marco Silva and their 14-goal top scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic, with the Serb striker determined to force a move.
For the past few years, clubs such as Brighton and Brentford — well-run but relatively small — have been able to financially out-gun many bigger European clubs in the transfer market.
But they certainly cannot compete with Saudi outfits funded by vast sovereign wealth and with no Uefa FFP rules to worry about.
The Saudis will be doing to the English what the English have been doing to continental Europe for some time.
For Newcastle, more than any other Premier League club, the issues are fascinating. The Saudi Public Investment Fund, which bankrolls Geordie Arabia, has now taken control of four Pro League clubs — Al-Ittihad, Al-Ahli, Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal.
At the weekend, Eddie Howe refused to rule out Newcastle loaning players from those clubs — which could be a cute way of circumventing FFP.
Newcastle have been building remarkably sensibly under Howe and are determined not to suffer the sort of Uefa and Premier League financial charges that Manchester City have faced since their Abu Dhabi takeover.
Howe has admitted frustrations that, as Newcastle seek to strengthen to meet the demands of Champions League football, they have so far added only Italy midfielder Sandro Tonali to their ranks because of FFP — so a few Saudi loans would be very useful.
Ruben Neves, who left Wolves for Al-Hilal at the peak age of 26, is mooted as a possible Newcastle loanee and there will soon be several more Howe may fancy at those four PIF-owned Saudi clubs.
But that brings us to the question of the chief footballing priority for Saudi’s rulers.
Is it Newcastle dominating the Premier League and, ultimately, Europe? Or is it building their own domestic league into one of the world’s strongest?
If it’s the latter, then the Pro League explosion may actually hold back Newcastle. Anyway, the Saudis probably intend to achieve both.
And given their ambitions of holding the World Cup and the Olympic Games, the Pro League will not fizzle out like the briefly-wealthy Chinese Super League.
So if, in a few years, the Saudis approach Uefa and ask for their clubs to take part in an expanded Champions League, do you really think European football chiefs will act any differently to PGA bosses?
Because if the Saudis know anything, they know that every man has his price.