It all began with Cristiano Ronaldo telling the world that the Saudi Pro League was going to change the face of football, but scarcely can anyone have believed his prophecy would be coming true just a few months after the Portuguese had signed for Al Nassr.
The ‘gold rush’ scenario had been seen before with the Chinese Super League, though this appears different, and, according to super agent, Jon Smith, it is.
“You can see that the states that are in the Middle East are beginning to use sports as the influence by buying into and, to a degree, dominating some of those sports, for example like what’s happened with LIV and the PGA,” he said in his exclusive CaughtOffside column.
“Sport becomes very much an influencing factor because it dominates the thought process of the masses. The biggest one is football, boxing interest is at the top of the sport and I don’t just mean the heavyweights – because there are some very worthy challenges going on in the sport across all the weights, but broadcast and social media are sizeably title led.”
Where once, European sport and sport in the United States was, in effect, all conquering in terms of influence and the ability to attract talent, that dynamic has now switched to the Middle East.
It’s only going to become more obvious as time goes by, with other countries ‘buddying up’ in order to gain traction and influence in political circles.
Saudi Pro League
“If you look at the political gatherings at the moment, the Middle East states are buddying up with China, who are also sizeably wealthy and influential and will become even more politically influential in the Pacific basin, and around the world,” Smith continued.
“They’re politically very active in the Caribbean and various other places, and all over Africa, and it’s the political seniors that are making the decisions to buddy up over sport.
“They can go and create a whole new footballing world but that’s going to take time. The one huge…
..
