A look at Local TV Sport and NationalWorld’s coverage on the Middle East growing impact on football, from the first initial announcement of buying clubs, hosting World Cups and then buying Cristiano Ronaldo, it has grown (and is growing) more and more every day.
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00:00 When the Saudi Arabian League was beginning to sign players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and N'Golo Kante,
00:09 it wasn't a huge surprise as the Chinese Super League did the same sort of thing around five or six years ago,
00:15 signing players past their pomp and heading towards the end of their career.
00:19 However, following the signing of Wolves captain and Portuguese international Ruben Neves,
00:25 who's in his footballing prime at just 26, should we be concerned that more players, more younger and quality players,
00:33 will start opting for a move to Saudi Arabia?
00:36 It's certainly one way of getting quick and easy exposure.
00:40 I mean, I did an interview last week with Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert,
00:44 who explained beautifully as to, you know, sort of why they're doing it and, you know, exposure,
00:50 a quick, relatively cheap gain for them as well.
00:53 But basically, it's pennies to them, even though it seems like an awful lot to us, it's probably pennies to them.
00:59 So, yeah, it's like they clearly want to make their domestically better and also probably in doing so,
01:06 their national team better. Of course, they had that success beating eventual world champions,
01:11 Argentina at the World Cup, but, you know, didn't quite progress as far, obviously.
01:15 But regardless, I think that probably stirred the emotions enough to want to allow the Saudis to pursue football.
01:22 I mean, they've pursued other sports, whether that be boxing, Formula One, golf, of course, in recent weeks.
01:29 But now football clearly is high on their agenda. Of course, they already, the PIF already owns Newcastle United.
01:36 So there's a lot going on. And then clearly by buying in some big names, similar to how China did a few years ago,
01:43 but perhaps players maybe a little bit, you know, higher profile, maybe a little bit prior,
01:51 like beforehand in their careers that so they're not right at the end.
01:56 But it's it'll be very interesting to see how they continue and how much success they have.
02:03 So just why are they all of a sudden approaching foreign players?
02:07 Well, Saudi Arabia is looking to expand its economy through other industries in order to help guarantee its financial future.
02:14 The country is currently reliant on selling money through oil and that is not going to last forever.
02:19 And they need to diversify their economy. All sounding a bit familiar.
02:23 Well, what happened in China was their super league was a direct order from the president.
02:29 He said that he wanted China to host the World Cup, have a good national team and have a domestic league.
02:36 But then the ruling Communist Party in China had a change of heart.
02:40 They didn't quite like how these large sums of money were flowing out of China and into Europe and foreigners pockets.
02:47 They decided to end this and then loads of rules were put in place to control how many foreign players you could have in the Chinese Super League.
02:56 It's thought that within the next five years, Saudi Arabia wants 100 of the best foreign players playing in its league.
03:07 Welcome to our local TV sport transfer show.
03:10 We will be bringing you the latest news, rumors and here we go from transfers around the around the world.
03:17 Dan, it's going to be an interesting summer, isn't it? It's going to be, you know, probably more money ever spent again.
03:23 There seems to be that record broken every summer now.
03:26 Let's start with the Saudi Arabian League, who've pulled off a huge 47 million deal to sign Wolves captain Ruben Neves.
03:34 You know, before we get into the transfer itself, what are your thoughts on the Saudi Arabian League and what they're sort of trying to do?
03:41 Or, you know, more over the Middle Eastern countries getting heavily involved into football, you know, the World Cup, buying clubs, taking the biggest names over there as well.
03:51 It's looking like a different sort of beast in terms of the money they have.
03:55 It's certainly one way of getting quick and easy exposure.
03:58 I mean, I did an interview last week with Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert, who explained beautifully as to, you know, sort of why they're doing it.
04:05 And, you know, exposure, a quick, relatively cheap gain for them as well.
04:11 Realistically, it's pennies to them, even though it seems like an awful lot to us, it's probably pennies to them.
04:17 So, yeah, it's like they clearly want to make their domestic league better and also probably in doing so that their national team better.
04:25 Of course, they had that success beating eventual world champions Argentina at the World Cup, but, you know, didn't quite progress as far, obviously.
04:33 But regardless, I think that probably stirred the emotions enough.
04:36 Neves is the start of this possible, you know, he's the first sort of top player that's gone during his prime.
04:42 Is that sort of a bit of a worrying sign? Do you think maybe more players are going to follow suit with that?
04:48 It's an interesting one, isn't it? I mean, Neves, I mean, I can't quite understand the thinking there because, as you quite rightly said,
04:54 it's not like he's, you know, mid-30s. He's still sort of mid to late 20s when you're in your prime in terms of football,
05:03 playing well in the Premier League, so possibly the most competitive league in the world.
05:09 Is it for the football challenge or is it just for the money?
05:13 Despite mass celebrations from Newcastle supporters following the club's Saudi-backed takeover,
05:17 there have been many more questions raised following the acquisition of the club.
05:22 The main issue in all of this is whether a country like Saudi Arabia should have an influence on English football.
05:30 To find out more, I've been speaking to Sasha Deshmukh, the chief executive of Amnesty International,
05:36 one of the main vocal opponents of the takeover.
05:39 We've seen, sadly, the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia worsen.
05:46 We've seen a situation that's included multiple executions of people conducted on a single day.
05:54 We've now started to see the jailing, not just even for short periods, but for very, very long sentences of people,
06:04 for example, simply for commenting on Twitter.
06:09 So I don't think anyone should welcome that this takeover happened and somehow say that this takeover helps human rights issues in Saudi Arabia.
06:19 Let's be clear, it doesn't.
06:21 However many conversations people like you and I are having around this, sadly, Newcastle United, its fixtures, its image,
06:30 the image of the Premier League, are being used on a massive global communication scale to sports wash the human rights abuses that are happening in Saudi Arabia.
06:40 The kind of additional tests that would need to be written into the Premier League rulebook,
06:45 into the regulations relating to ownership, into the regulations relating to directors of clubs are important.
06:53 They would highlight in particular human rights requirements, but actually they are not complicated to put in.
07:00 I've also been speaking to Miguel Delaney, the chief football writer at The Independent, on why this deal could be problematic for football.
07:08 A state's money starts to kind of change the very complexion of football, how it affects competitiveness.
07:18 But really it just comes back to the political use of football for very questionable purposes.
07:26 I mean, if you talk to any expert in the area, be it human rights groups, be it academic experts on Saudi Arabia,
07:35 they would just consider that a laugh-all because there is no separation between public investment funds and Saudi Arabia.
07:41 It's the state's sovereign wealth fund. Why football has been so slow to confront state ownership,
07:48 and why there were so few questions with, I suppose it's more relevant to Manchester City takeover, given it's the Premier League's jurisdiction,
07:58 why that was allowed at the time, where the questions were then, why since then all of the elements of that weren't assessed.
08:07 Newcastle United are now undoubtedly one of the most powerful footballing operations in the world.
08:13 Do you yourself have any moral objections to the source and income that these clubs have?
08:18 No, because I've got a car and I stick petrol in it. Now, if I had a moral objection, a strong moral objection to the activities of the Middle Eastern owners, I'd cycle everywhere.
08:32 I don't really buy into this concept of sports washing because Saudi Arabia is a rich enough country that it doesn't need its reputation in the West to be heightened via a football club.
08:49 The potential budgets of these Middle Eastern owned clubs are huge, evidently.
08:56 What does that mean for other clubs who perhaps have historically strong commercial brands? I think of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United. How do they continue to compete?
09:06 Provided that the rules are applied rigorously, I don't see one club or even two clubs being so far ahead.
09:16 Are we likely, in your opinion, to see further investment from such places as the Middle East or perhaps further?
09:22 The success that the Premier League brings in terms of attention is actually very, very cheap.
09:29 We've seen Middle Eastern investment in organisations such as the Harrods, the Shard and so on.
09:35 And that brings relatively little attention. If you want attention, football is the way forward.
09:40 With money continually being invested into football, it will inevitably continue to evolve financially.
09:46 Maybe Ronaldo could have done it earlier. Why do players actually do this? Is it just the money?
09:52 I think maybe reputation on the global scale for Carrasco makes sense going over there.
09:57 He might not have been as well known, but Ronaldo is a global force and we all know that.
10:01 The most followed person on social media. He doesn't need to go out there for that reason.
10:07 Obviously, the money, the staggering figures must have quite the impact on it.
10:11 If he's tried already to get to other clubs across Europe, been rejected everywhere, then that's probably why he's gone.
10:19 It's not like he's building reputation. He's already made that.
10:22 Whether it's he wants to prove in a... He's not even just proving in a different league either because no one's going to be impressed by it.
10:30 So I genuinely think it's probably just kind of money and maybe things after football, if he's got promises of being an ambassador in some sort of way.
10:38 We saw the World Cup in Qatar. It was under very controversial circumstances, but it turned out to be a quite amazing tournament really.
10:48 The figures of a calm tournament, no violence and everything flowed quite well.
10:55 Do you think that could have had an impact on this?
10:57 Because that should have showed that these nations can get involved with football in the world of sport.
11:05 Clearly, they're wanting to, aren't they? Because of course, they've been involved in football for a good while now.
11:11 Of course, with Abu Dhabi owning Manchester City, then Qatar with PSG, and now Saudi Arabia with Newcastle.
11:16 Then obviously Qatar also hosting the World Cup. They're clearly wanting to be involved.
11:19 Of course, you can argue that there is sports watching going on and there probably is.
11:23 Hosting a World Cup is one thing, but owning clubs is another.
11:29 Owning one of football's biggest ever names, Charlie, that's another play that they've made in terms of trying to get into this Western World game.
11:41 Yes, I 100% get the perspective from Al Masur and Saudi Arabia as a region, as a country.
11:48 It's going to increase their reputation massively. We've just seen that from social media.
11:54 Just imagine what it's going to be seeing this guy with the shirt on scoring goals for them on a consistent basis.