Gary Lineker is largely unperturbed about the surmise that Saudi Arabia will one day rival the Premier League, despite the Middle East’s zealous fervor and clamor to bring household names to the Kingdom.
The Saudi Pro League has demonstrated intense fervor in ramping up their recruitment efforts since Portuguese national Cristiano Ronaldo severed his ties with Manchester United after boss Erik ten Hag showed he had no patience for Ronaldo’s petulance and self-indulgent ways. Needless to say, the former Real Madrid crusader became the Saudi pro league’s most high-profile name in December last year.
In the wake of his joining, Saudi Arabia’s biggest clubs continued to flash their bounty of oil-sourced wealth as they proceeded to plunder Europe’s top clubs for football talents, resulting in a growing exodus of players ditching the English top-flight for the massively irresistible wages on offer.
Among those listed in the exodus are Jordan Henderson who relinquished his Liverpool captaincy to join Steven Gerrard at Al-Ettifaq, Ruben Neves who left Wolves, N’Golo Kante and Edouard Mendy who gladly swapped their livelihoods in the Premier League for life in the sun-baked desert climes of Saudi Arabia.
However, despite prominent club bosses like Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp posting warning of the threat posed by the growingSaudi Arabia incursion and exploitation of the situation, Lineker feels that any imminent threat to the Premier League is minimal as his contention is that the Middle Eastern bloc is still unable to lure any young world class player.
Ronaldo is clearly beyond threshold and into his twilight years and current Ballon d’Or holder Karim Benzema is also just past his prime despite still being able to ply their trade scoring goals in Saudi Arabia. Apart from these two world class goal-scoring legends, the league has been struggling to attract a world class player in their prime years.
The Saudis attempted to launch a mega move by offering Paris Saint-Germain’s indecipherable hero-turned-villain Kylian Mbappe an outrageous deal worth over £600m-per-year, but the French ace coolly turned a blind eye to the humongous offer, refusing even to hold any conversations to broker a deal. Suffice it to say at this juncture that clearly not all European top-flight footballers are desperate enough to seize any and all offers despite the bountiful largesse dangled as carrots. Thankfully also, Mbappe, like his former teammate Lionel Messi, were still able to hold onto their honor and integrity to play where they choose to play their best and not just to earn that extra dollar.
And until the day that the Saudi Pro league is able to meritoriously attract elite world-class players in their prime and not by shoving eads of cash down their throats, Lineker is largely unconcerned by the threat posed by Saudi Arabia’s football ambitions, as he explained writing in his column for The Sun.
62-year-old LIneker said: “But until they sign Kylian Mbappe, or another genuine world star in his prime, then the major European clubs will remain relaxed about it.
“Right now, it’s just the latest league where older players go to die their footballing deaths — like Karim Benzema joining Al-Ittihad — for one last earner.
“It’s the same with Major League Soccer in America, it was the same with China for a while, and I did it myself in Japan at the end of my playing career.”
Definitely no stranger when it comes to swapping England for opportunities elsewhere as he did when he left Everton to move to Barcelona in 1986, the lure of the Camp Nou to Lineker had always been beyond financial considerations, unlike the cash-wrapped Saudi Arabia deals proferred currently.
Unquestionably, Lineker’s likening the Middle East oasis to the MLS haven as opulent pastures for football’s aging stars as a late-career resting home to graze luxuriously in has been arguably prompted by the GOAT Lionel Messi’s decision to exit the European stables for an American interlude.
Despite the reasonable belief prevalent in the Premier League that the Saudis are more than able to afford splashing their abundant affluence to plunder Europe’s top-flight clubs for the best players, Lineker is obdurate in his belief that the Middle East’s offerings shouldn’t prompt irrational fear amongst European ranks.