MrBlack Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 1 hour ago, villa4europe said: I'm not going to be interested enough to watch a single minute of actual Saudi football... But I'm not gonna lie I reckon I'll try a Saudi FM24 save just to see what the crack is, signing all the big name free transfers I can get, loads of money but not everyone interested in signing, taking on these big 4 who sign the superstars by buying a more balanced and we'll rounded team There's something different in it 3 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said: What will your transfer budget be though the whole value of the PIF? So about 800 billion Could you use a data editor to recreate a similar scenario in a league that doesn't then validate the Saudi existence? Does the game these days now need Internet to work and thereby they can track and measure who's playing the Saudi league? Thereby encouraging then to spend more money licensing it in future. Does the Saudi league even exist in FM these days? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 On 15/07/2023 at 09:15, VillaJ100 said: Same was offered a job with NEOM for about 12k a month. Honestly one of the clinchers was realising I'd have to travel 400 odd miles for a pint Need to go to the communication room to meet John Walker. From the Scotch Office. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 15 minutes ago, MrBlack said: Could you use a data editor to recreate a similar scenario in a league that doesn't then validate the Saudi existence? Does the game these days now need Internet to work and thereby they can track and measure who's playing the Saudi league? Thereby encouraging then to spend more money licensing it in future. Does the Saudi league even exist in FM these days? Saudi are big investors in Embracer Group who I think owns Eidos Games. But they don't make football manager these days right? Sports Interactive is owned by SEGA these days and I don't think PIF/Saudi have bought into them yet. They will thou. Saudi does have a lot of money invested in EA thou so as mentioned I'm certain they will boost the player and team stats for the Saudi league in future FIFA (or whatever it will be named) games. Hundreds of millions of kids who will become if not fans then at least turn their attention towards them. Is pace still overpowered on FIFA? Might explain why they are trying to sign Moussa Diaby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinRichardsonsMoustache Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 On 13/07/2023 at 21:26, Tommo_b said: £700k a week?! For Henderson?! Why are the Saudis not just offering these wages to players at the peaks of their careers instead? This is mental. I think this gives European leagues some hope, tbh: they've probably offered the moon for Mbappe, gone down the list and offered massive money to the likes of Diary, too. Thing is: none of them want to go there (yet). All they can do is pay these salaries to players who have reached the end of their careers. Stevie G is turning his new outfit into the American teams of the 70s and 80s, when English managers would go over and get jobs for their old pals. Big money, old ideas. The difference with the Saudis is that they can maintain this level of spending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 32 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said: What will your transfer budget be though the whole value of the PIF? So about 800 billion dunno, or maybe a low transfer budget but high wage budget with no ability to change it, something where players over a certain age become more attracted to the club, id kind of like them to try and make that league more interesting and require a tweak in how i would normally play the game but then at the same time i wouldnt want them to pander to them out of curiosity i would probably play a save where you have to do what it is the saudis seemingly want to do and try and get on par with the european teams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 # Team sum Matches average 1 Al Ittihad 355.699 9 39.522 2 Al Nassr 115.311 7 16.473 3 Al Adalah 111.555 9 12.395 4 Al Fateh 108.198 9 12.022 5 Al Hilal 89.838 10 8.984 6 Al Ra’ed 66.412 10 6.641 7 Al Ettifaq 72.283 11 6.571 8 Al Tai 32.290 5 6.458 9 Al Shabab 36.940 6 6.157 10 Al Taawoun 41.068 8 5.134 11 Al Khaleej 50.528 10 5.053 12 Damac FC 39.130 10 3.913 13 Al Batin 20.610 6 3.435 14 Abha Club 23.860 7 3.409 15 Al Fayha 25.947 8 3.243 16 Al Wehda 14.432 9 1.604 overall 1.204.101 134 8.986 https://www.worldfootball.net/attendance/ksa-premier-league-2022-2023/1/ Will be an interesting adjustment for these stars to play in front of almost no fans. Guess there will be more fans now but some of the stadiums are Luton level tiny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villatillidie95 Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 Willian close to agreeing a new deal at Fulham after rejecting a move to saudi. Looked like he was going to go over to the dark side at one point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 2 minutes ago, Villatillidie95 said: Willian close to agreeing a new deal at Fulham after rejecting a move to saudi. Looked like he was going to go over to the dark side at one point! Willian has form for following the money 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaJ100 Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 I wonder how they'll square this with the fundamentalist nutters, surely sports are haram and paying people a million riyal a week for sports is more haram Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villatillidie95 Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 Michael Antonio has held preliminary talks with gerrard about moving to Al ettifaq. Only got a year left on the contract. They will need those types of signings too, not superstars but still known names Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 Thought I'd have a look at the league see who was there, it is like the forgotten player thread Abha - Felipe Caicedo (man City) Al Ahli - mendy, firmino, boudabouz (betis, St etienne) alioski (Leeds) Ettifaq - Gerrard as manager, vitinho (cska) Al Fateh - bilic as manager, Christian Tello Al hilal - koulibaly, neves, milinkovic savic Al itihad - managed by Nuno, Kante, benzema, jota, hegazi (baggies) Kahleej - Lisandro lopez That's it for me, there's half the teams where I've never heard of anyone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S-Platt Posted July 18, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted July 18, 2023 Had no idea they even had a league until Ronaldo went there. Looking at the list of teams El Shabab are the one for me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tayls Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 23 minutes ago, villa4europe said: Thought I'd have a look at the league see who was there, it is like the forgotten player thread Abha - Felipe Caicedo (man City) Al Ahli - mendy, firmino, boudabouz (betis, St etienne) alioski (Leeds) Ettifaq - Gerrard as manager, vitinho (cska) Al Fateh - bilic as manager, Christian Tello Al hilal - koulibaly, neves, milinkovic savic Al itihad - managed by Nuno, Kante, benzema, jota, hegazi (baggies) Kahleej - Lisandro lopez That's it for me, there's half the teams where I've never heard of anyone What about Ronaldo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villatillidie95 Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 im gonna pick one of the only 2 clubs without the prefix "Al" in their name, so thats Abha club for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 8 minutes ago, Tayls said: What about Ronaldo? Missed nassr completely! That's Ronaldo, fofana, talisca, brozovic and David ospina If anyone's interested Nunos team won the league Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villatillidie95 Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 Allan St Maximan didn't travel with the newcastle squad to play rangers in their pre season game as he is in negotiations with a saudi pro league club Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidlewis Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 Football for all its money still needs to be accessible and sell to a wider audience and be marketable. Saudi Arabia’s isn’t even an accessible country culturally let alone drawing in capacity crowds from abroad fans which the PL does offer for the big teams. Saudi will be making multiple billions a year in losses for well over a decade to even get 30% of the PL. sure they have the cash to try it but do they want to burn £100-200bn trying? Seems a bit of a stretch. MLS got a deal with apple at 2.5bn not even half the PL and they’ve been working hard for two decades to make that work, in a far far bigger sporting nation than Saudi. more money than brains I think Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
It's Your Round Posted July 19, 2023 Share Posted July 19, 2023 I saw a kid in the airport wearing full Al Nassr kit with Ronaldo on the back. An English kid about 8 years old. Is this the new generation of fans we keep hearing about? There’s no way I’d be allowing that if it was me 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanBalaban Posted July 19, 2023 Share Posted July 19, 2023 (edited) If I may play devil's advocate for a moment.... I think it would be fair to say that most footballers aren't born into money. A Premier League salary is beyond most people's wildest dreams, but with agents controlling the show most of the time, you have to wonder how much of the decision is being made by the player themselves. You look at our Wesley, or (another Wesley) Fofana, or what thankfully wasn't the outcome for Sebastien Haller but could've been, and the next 4 year contract may end up being the last. You look at l=players like Marv that send a sizeable percentage of his income back to help his community in Zimbabwe. There's many like him too. At £80k per week over 4 years is nearly £17m gross. I know there's various tax mitigating options available, but let's say £10m in the pocket. A huge amount of money. Also, surprisingly easy for a 20-something millionaire with a large entourage to piss that money away. At let's say £200k per week in Saudi over 4 years, tax-free means over £41 million in the bank. That's enough for a good proportion of players (and 100% of agents) to at least consider it and, for every good player that goes over there, the league gets stronger. As a professional sports person, I would hope they would want to challenge themselves at the very highest level, but I can also understand those that would be tempted to take the money. For a bit of context, I work with a few companies controlled by the PIF on the investment side of things. Whilst ultimately everything leads back financially to the house of Saud, the decision and strategy C-level members tend to be western (predominantly Aussies, Brits and Americans). They operate very much in the interests of growing the fund itself, and a huge part of that is built around growing the reputation of Saudi Arabia for tourism, commerce and healthcare. Dubai has long since shifted it's income stream to being a global hub for most multinational companies, attracting workers from all over the world which allows further investments into F&B and hospitality to attract holiday makers. Conversely, I can't imagine many people putting KSA at the top of their holiday wishlists. The football is just part of the wider program, along with Neom, the Red Sea resorts, aggressive TV marketing campaigns, desert and wadi adventure trails, the boxing and golf, which are all designed to change the perception of the country. As a commercial region, it dwarfs the UAE but private businesses still have to pay a sizeable premium to get people to work in Saudi over somewhere like Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Qatar. Whilst the Kingdom might have deep pockets, these private companies don't, and they are putting pressure on the government saying that if they want the big US and European companies to have a hub in Saudi, they can't sustain paying over the odds for staff because people think the place is a backwards shithole. The motivation is to push Saudi as a lifestyle destination that global employees would like happily choose to live and work, whilst earning a higher, tax-free income. That's their primary goal - it all comes to investing their money now, so that they can make more money when the oil demand runs down. Edited July 19, 2023 by StanBalaban 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted July 19, 2023 Share Posted July 19, 2023 3 hours ago, It's Your Round said: I saw a kid in the airport wearing full Al Nassr kit with Ronaldo on the back. An English kid about 8 years old. Is this the new generation of fans we keep hearing about? There’s no way I’d be allowing that if it was me My son was always a massive Ronaldo fan, definitely his sporting idol. He has zero interest in him now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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