Complaints about the Saudi Pro League bring a danger of sounding hypocritical

It’s that time of year when Premier League managers can take a break, get away from it all, switch off, relax — or, in reality, spend sun-kissed days in a state of high anxiety, preoccupied with constant updates on their club’s transfer activity, or lack of it.

Still, at least they’re getting a break from the usual routine of press conferences, pre-match interviews, post-match interviews — and there would be no more pressing question right now than what they make of the Saudi Pro League phenomenon that has seen Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante and Ruben Neves beat a path to the Middle East while Kalidou Koulibaly, Hakim Ziyech, Luka Modric and others, such as Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva and Riyad Mahrez, weigh up whether they can really say no to the enormous sums on offer.

We can guess what most of those managers would make of it, though, because English football has been through something like this before.

For the Saudi Pro League in 2023, read the Chinese Super League for a period in 2016 and 2017 when Chelsea playmaker Oscar joined Shanghai SIPG in a deal worth £400,000 a week, figures that were dwarfed when Carlos Tevez pitched up at Shanghai Shenhua on more than £600,000 a week.

It didn’t last, of course. The Chinese Super League bubble well and truly burst. But for a time, the Premier League coaching fraternity were seriously concerned as one leading player after another had his head turned by the wages on offer.

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Arsene Wenger said “we (the Premier League) have to be worried” because China appeared to have the political desire and financial strength “to lure every player from Europe”. Antonio Conte, having lost Oscar halfway through a title-winning season, warned that the “Chinese market is a danger for all — not only for Chelsea but all the teams in the world”.

Similar opinions have been raised this week with regard to the Saudi Pro League. Not by managers, but by pundits like former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher, warning that the capture of a player of Bernardo’s quality, at the age of 28, would be “a game-changer”, adding that “Saudi have taken over golf, the big boxing fights and now they want to take over football”.

Carragher’s concerns are justifiable when it comes to the idea of a threatened Saudi “takeover” of the sport and the presumed motivation behind it.

First, it was the Public Investment Fund buying Newcastle United. Now, it is the same fund leading four clubs’ attempts to lure the best and biggest-name talent in the game to Riyadh and Jeddah — as well as this year’s Club World Cup. Sooner or later, it will be a bid to stage the World Cup and, no doubt before too much longer, a Champions League final or any rival club competition that might emerge over the next decade.

Inevitably, some on social media accused Carragher of racism and Islamophobia. It is nothing of the sort. He and many others would say…