transfair market The Saudi Professional League “Roshn” finished fourth globally behind the England, France and Italy leagues in terms of spending on player inclusion deals in the 2023-2024 season, which includes the transfer periods, the first in the summer of 2023, and the second in the winter of 2024.
Saudi clubs’ spending
Saudi League clubs spent around 972 million euros during the current season according to Transfair Market data. Although spending in January 2024 transfers was only 23 million euros, the summer 2023 transfer period was record.
The Saudi League played a major role in the growth of spending on the inclusion of players in the current season globally, spending only 45 million euros in 2022-2023, thus doubling spending in the current season compared to the previous season by more than 21 times.
The global transfer market jumped to at least 10.2 billion euros, surpassing the previous record of 9.4 billion euros set in 2019-2020, a growth of 8.5%.
This figure was achieved despite the decline in Premier League spending from 3.1 billion euros last season to 2.9 billion euros during the current season, a decline of 6.5%.
In contrast, spending for other major European leagues has jumped over the two transfer periods, with the value of Ligue 1 deals increasing by about 396 million euros, the Bundesliga by about 279.2 million euros, the English Premiership by about 124.8 million euros and the Serie A by 79 million.
Top Spending Investment Fund Clubs
The impact of Saudi Arabia in the transfer window was not only reflected in the total public expenditure for the 2023-2024 season, but also in the list of the highest-spending clubs on the inclusion of players in the world, which saw the four clubs owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Al-Hilal, Al-Ahly, Al Nasr and Etihad, appear among the top 20 clubs in terms of expenditure in the current season.
The list of top 20 clubs in terms of expenditure, other than the Saudi Quartet, included 10 English clubs, two clubs from both Serie A and the Bundesliga, while the list included one club from both La Liga and Ligue 1 , according to transfair market .
The Saudi al-hilal finished third in the world with 11 new players at a cost of 376 million euros, behind the English “Chelsea” and the French Paris Saint-Germain, while the eighth position was the share of Al-Ahly, who signed 18 players who cost 184 million euros to store.
The Saudi club Al-Nasr, with 8 new deals costing 165 million euros, ranked 12th in the world, while Al-Ittihad came 19th in the world after spending 121.5 million euros to include 17 new players.
