In the RSL (Roshn Saudi League), there has been a lot of controversy due to the recent signings that they have made. For those who don’t know, the RSL has signed some major players to their teams such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar Jr., etc. The reason why this is such a big deal is because the league doesn’t have Financial Fair Play, a limit on the amount of money they can spend on their team, and the fact that Saudi is an extremely rich country due to oil money, means that they can spend insane amounts of money that other leagues cannot to persuade players to play for that league. A lot of money means better player contracts that make better players go to play in that league means even more money in revenue leaving its competitors who don’t have that privilege of having billions of dollars to throw away on soccer games, forgotten and left in the dust.
Take Kylian Mbappe for example. An RSL team named Al Hilal shattered the world record for a deal given to a player when they offered Mbappe a whopping 1.1 billion dollar deal. Mind you, the team should be struggling to pay their current roster with people like Neymar with a $178,100,000 yearly salary, and Kalidou Koulibaly with a $21,372,000 yearly salary but thanks to the absence of salary caps and financial fair play, those salaries are just another drop in the bucket to Al Hilal.
The advantages gained from the absence of financial fair play in the Saudi League are in my opinion, very unfair. With no salary caps to regulate the teams, what will hold them back from buying out whole teams at a time until they have no more competition and they gain an international stronghold for the entire sport? Now realistically speaking, I know that it won’t go that far but to be in any of the other league’s shoes, this would be my nightmare.
