Saudi Arabia’s extraordinary football overhaul explained
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2023
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
This week the Saudi Arabian domestic league announced a big revamp. In short it’s more teams, bigger talent, and a huge injection of cash.
How will it work? Who could be joining Cristiano Ronaldo and now Karim Benzema out there? And what is the Kingdom's ultimate goal?
To answer these questions Mark Chapman is joined by Adam Crafton, Jacob Whitehead and Wael Jabir
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week, the Saudi Arabian Domestic League announced a big revamp. In short, more teams, |
| 0:09.8 | bigger talent and a huge injection of cash. How will it work? Who could be joining Cristiana |
| 0:16.0 | Ronaldo and now Karim Benzima out there? And what is the goal? Oh, and I would imagine there'd be some golf in this as well. |
| 0:23.2 | We'll explain everything. |
| 0:24.4 | I'm Mark Chapman. |
| 0:25.2 | This is the Athletic Football podcast. |
| 0:52.0 | Huge story coming out of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that a Saudi sports club investment and privatisation project will be put in place. |
| 0:56.0 | Karim Benzim I will be enjoying his evening as well because he's got a very lucrative deal that has got over the line to play his football in Saudi Arabia after |
| 1:00.0 | 14 very successful seasons at Rail Madrid. |
| 1:04.0 | Now to a surprise move in the world of professional golf that PGA tour and European tour |
| 1:09.0 | today announced a merger with controversial Saudi-backed |
| 1:12.7 | Live Golf. |
| 1:13.7 | If Saudi Arabia doesn't have a World Cup within the next decade, I would be staggered. |
| 1:23.5 | So joining us today at the Athletics Adam Crafton and Jacob Whitehead, plus Whale Jabir, who is based in |
| 1:29.9 | Rehad. We'll come through to the announcement, first of all, Jacob. But we've got two massive |
| 1:35.8 | sports stories here, Whale. So I just wonder, let's do the football first. What was the reaction |
| 1:42.1 | to that announcement in Riyadh and in Saudi Arabia? |
| 1:46.4 | Yeah, within Saudi Arabia, their action has been obviously one of huge excitement, |
| 1:50.7 | especially within fans of the clubs that are receiving the investment, be it from the |
| 1:56.4 | PIF or from the other government companies that are investing in clubs. Obviously a bit of disappointment and frustration from the side of fans of the clubs who are not |
| 2:06.6 | part of the deal yet. |
| 2:08.6 | Most notably a Shabab, who are the fifth biggest club in the country and feeling a little |
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