With the transfer of some prominent old stars, the top clubs in the Saudi Arabian Pro League have already landed a number of other top-class players in the first summer of transfers since superstar Cristiano Ronaldo surprisingly switched to Al-Nassr in January. Recently, however, the commitments of Ronaldo’s compatriots Ruben Neves (26) and Jota (24), who have hardly moved to the previous football no-man’s-land to end their careers in peace, caused a particular stir. Jota’s new club All-Ittihad did not leave a shadow of a doubt that the deals did not mean the end of the transfer offensive.
When the Saudi top club Al-Ittihad announced the commitment of João Pedro Neves Filipe, known as Jota, from Celtic Glasgow for almost 30 million euros on Monday, the media waves were not even as high as when Cristiano Ronaldo changed in winter or Edouard Mendy, N’Golo Kanté, Marcelo Brozovic, Kalidou Koulibaly and Karim Benzema in the Pro League this summer. Nevertheless, the deal represents a kind of turning point, because at just 24 years old, the youngest star of a European club followed the call of money to the desert state.
Al-Ittihad seems to be more than clear that the purchase of Jota also sends a clear message to the long-established football aristocracy of the European continent. There is no other way to explain the message in the disturbing video announcing the deal.
On Monday evening, Al-Itihad posted a video on his Twitter account starring an animated version of former Tottenham manager Nuno Esposito, also recently signed. The 49-year-old drinks coffee in it while watching a game between the Celtics and their arch-rivals Rangers on TV, in which Jota scored a goal. Nuno Esposito then throws himself in the finest thread and races to a kind of shop, which he reaches a few minutes before the shop closes at 11 p.m.
There, the trainer is shown a series of playing cards that show other Celtic stars alongside Jota with Giorgos Giakoumakis, Odsonne Edouard, Anthony Ralston and Albian Ajeti. After a moment’s thought, Nuno chooses the Jota card. Smiling slightly madly, he places the card on top of others showing fellow Al-Ittihad star additions Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kanté. Then the man who gave Nuno the cards asks, “What do you want to do?” and receives as an answer: “We want to rule the world!” However, there are of course also positive contributions here.
Reactions to the post are split. While many tweets from the Arabic-speaking world praise the staging, reactions in English are: “What the hell was I just watching?”, “Looks like a good horror film, when is it coming out in cinemas?”, “You know that you’ve signed a footballer and not a criminal genius, right?” or “Football is dead”.
By the way: One expert does not believe that the move of stars of the football scene from Europe to Saudi Arabia is just a fad.
The renowned sports and economics expert Simon Chadwick already put forward the thesis to “SVT” in June that outstanding players like Erling “Haaland and others will play in Saudi Arabia long before they stop”.
Saudi Arabia is pursuing “a long-term plan” that aims to “gain as much influence as possible in the sports world,” Chadwick explains, adding: “The global sports economy is worth around $750 billion. Saudi Arabia wants a piece of it Have cake. Football is Saudi Arabia’s biggest sport, so it’s not like China where it disappears after a few years.”