The Premier League will scrutinise transfers to the Saudi Pro League but has no plans to enforce an embargo despite calls to halt a series of big-money deals involving Chelsea and Wolves.
N’Golo Kante’s free transfer to Saudi Arabia’s champions Al-Ittihad was confirmed on Wednesday and is expected to spark an exodus of Chelsea players to the Gulf state.
Chelsea are in talks with Saudi Pro League clubs regarding deals for Kalidou Koulibaly, Edouard Mendy and Hakim Ziyech. It is thought Romelu Lukaku has declined a move.
Critics and rival clubs have queried links between Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the four leading SPL clubs it took over in June and Chelsea’s owners.
It has been reported that PIF has invested in Clearlake Capital, the private equity firm that owns a majority stake in Chelsea although the club denies PIF has any direct involvement. The Premier League scrutinised the Todd Boehly and Clearlake takeover in May 2022 and cleared it.
Ruben Neves’s £47m move to Al Hilal, considered a high fee for player with only one year remaining on his Wolves contract, also raised eyebrows this week.
And on Wednesday pundit Gary Neville called for all transfers to Saudi Arabia to be blocked. “The Premier League should put an instant embargo on transfers to Saudi Arabia to ensure the integrity of the game isn’t being damaged,” Neville told the BBC. “Checks should be made on the appropriateness of the transactions.
“If it comes through that process, obviously transfers could open up again. But I do believe, at this moment in time, transfers should be halted until you look into the ownership structure at Chelsea and whether there are beneficial transfer dealings that are improper.”
i understands however that the Premier League is confident in its new Fair Market Value rules that regulate transfer deals without the need to block transfers.
Saudi Arabia wants to establish its Pro League as one of the leading football leagues in the world and has one of the biggest wealth funds in the world to fund it.
Each transfer will be assessed by the Premier League to ensure it is representative of each player’s value and if any are considered too high the club would be forced to return the difference.
Kante’s contract, for example, was set to expire at the end of June and he has moved on a free transfer. The fee Al-Nassr, now owned by PIF, are expected to pay Chelsea for Ziyech is around £8m – roughly £25m less than the Blues paid for the player in 2020. He is 30 years old and has two years remaining on his Chelsea contract, although both parties are happy to part ways.
Another factor in the process is clubs being given the opportunity to explain their own assessment of the value. Even if a fee appears large, if a club can establish that an auction drove up the value of the player it is likely to be approved.
Chelsea have a huge playing squad and are offloading players to satisfy Financial Fair Play rules, after spending more than half a billion pounds on players since the takeover.
Cristiano Ronaldo paved the way for the Saudi Arabian explosion after moving from Manchester United to Al-Nassr, now owned by PIF, in January while Karim Benzema became the next major player to follow, agreeing to leave Real Madrid for Al-Ittihad. The league tried to attract Lionel Messi but the player decided to join Inter Miami to help grow the game in the United States.
But SPL also has ambitions to become a destination for current players at or closer to their peak, hence the Neves signing and attempted deals for Koulibaly, Mendy and Ziyech.
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