Outside a stadium in Riyadh stands Abdullah in a white thob, his team’s flag in his hands, a grin on his face. “We will be one day like England,” he says. “We will have the big stars.”
He is talking about the latest news from the rampant Saudi Pro League: Neymar, who still holds the record as the most expensive footballer ever, has signed for Al Hilal from Paris Saint-Germain. Regardless of which team they support, Saudis are revelling in the kingdom’s new role in global football.
Neymar is only the latest of a procession of international stars and major trophy winners who have signed up to the league since June, when the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund bought four clubs and turned the world of soccer upside down.
Abdullah, a fan of Al Riyadh, is excited by the Saudi Pro League signings despite his team not benefiting yet (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
The new signings follow in the footsteps of a pioneer of Saudi football, Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the sporting world’s superstars, who signed for Al Nassr last winter and has been a champion of the league since.
But what can the new recruits expect? Are the matches any good? What are the fans like? Are the stadiums up to standard? And can you really play football in 38C (100F)?
The Athletic has been to Saudi Arabia to find out.
Friday, Jeddah: Al Ahli v Al Hazm
Arriving at Jeddah is unlike arriving anywhere else in the world. At the airport, in lines for passport control, in the bathrooms, at baggage collection, there are people dressed in plain white robes. They dress that way because they are heading 50 miles east of Jeddah to Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and the location of the Kaaba and Islam’s holiest site, a pilgrimage destination for Muslims. The robes are a way of removing distraction and social standing; everyone looks the same whether rich or poor.
This summer a very different group of people arrived in Saudi Arabia. Instead of white robes, they were draped in Gucci, Fendi and Louis Vuitton. These people were the new recruits of the Saudi Pro League (SPL), a division that began in 1976 but is being revamped for Vision 2030, the kingdom’s plan to diversify the economy, attract foreign visitors, encourage healthier lifestyles among locals, and raise Saudi’s standing in the world.
When Al Nassr signed Cristiano Ronaldo, he was 37 and had blown up his relationship with former club Manchester United, but it was still a shock that a five-time Ballon d’Or winner would move to Saudi Arabia. A much bigger shock came in June when the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, bought four of the 18 SPL clubs — Al Nassr, Al Hilal, Al Ittihad and Al Ahli — and lured a host of other big names.
Nine-time champions Al Nassr got European Champions League-winner Sadio Mane, 31, and 30-year-old Inter Milan captain Marcelo Brozovic. Riyadh-based Al Hilal, who have 18 Saudi titles, have signed superstar Neymar, 31, from Paris Saint-Germain. Jeddah side Al Ittihad signed Fabinho, 29, from Liverpool; N’Golo Kante, 32, from Chelsea; and 35-year-old Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema from Real Madrid.
Then there’s Al Ahli, the fourth PIF-owned club, who are playing Al Hazm in Jeddah tonight for the opening fixture of the SPL’s new season. Jeddah, a historic port city, is known for its corniche with views of the Red Sea, the latticed balconies of its old town, and its new Formula 1 track. The Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Stadium is far from all that, in the city’s south east, beside a wasteland car park and nestled by an underpass.
The stadium, built in 1970, was renovated two years ago and looks glitzy, with its latticed wraparound and big screens. “Thirty-something,” says an official when asked its capacity. Two hours before kick-off, Al Ahli fans are already arriving as the sun sets. Some wear thobs. Some have Al Ahli’s green kit on. There are women, some in niqabs, abayas and hijabs, some have a hijab only. Soldiers, police and stewards watch everyone arrive.
Fans outside the Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Stadium (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
In the Al Ahli dressing room, the players’ kits have been hung, including the new arrivals: Firmino, 31, from Liverpool; Riyad Mahrez, 32, from Manchester City, where he won the Premier League and European Champions League last season; 31-year-old goalkeeper Edouard Mendy from Chelsea, where he won the European Champions League in 2021; and Allan Saint-Maximin, a French 26-year-old signed from English Premier League side Newcastle United, who were bought by PIF in 2021.
In Al Hazm’s dressing room, the names are less familiar, even the foreign players, of whom each SPL team is allowed eight. Vina, a 32-year-old forward from Brazil, is worth £1m ($1.3m) according to Transfermarkt; Portuguese midfielder Toze, 30, is worth £3.8m; and Aymen Dahmen, 26, a Tunisian, is worth £850,000. Their captain, Talal Al Absi, 30, has one cap for Saudi Arabia… as a sub in 2019.
“There are no stars here,” a Saudi in the dressing room jokes.
With the world’s attention on the SPL, its owners want a show — the next day, Carlo Nohra, SPL’s chief operating officer, tells journalists: “We were all hoping and praying that you’d get a good spectacle”. The fans do their part. Just over 24,000 attend, those in the main stand singing (asked what they are singing, one fan says that the songs are about loyalty to the team), banging drums and setting off pyros. The atmosphere is more intense than at many European matches, but the football isn’t.
Al Ahli fans watch their new stars (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
The game is a mismatch. Al Ahli go two goals up after 10 minutes. The heat stifles competitiveness. It’s a 9pm kick-off, so the sun has set, but it was 38C in Jeddah today and the temperature has only fallen a few degrees. When Firmino scored the first goal, a man in the stand collapsed, falling behind his seat. Medics raised his legs, his friends fanned him. He was conscious by the time Firmino got the second, but he refrained from celebrating. Nobody was too concerned about him.
“It’s really difficult to play with the heat,” Saint-Maximin says after the match, which ends 3-1, Firmino getting his hat-trick, Vina scoring for Al Hazm.
Last season, both teams were in the First Division League, Saudi’s second tier. Al Ahli beat Al Hazm to the top spot by just four points. This season they look at completely different levels. When Saint-Maximin is brought out of the dressing room to talk to foreign journalists (Firmino does some broadcast interviews, Mahrez declines, so does Mendy, who says he has a bus to catch but then stands in the foyer looking at his phone) — for “technical questions only” a minder says — he talks about the imbalance.
Firmino, fresh from a hat-trick on his debut, talks to Saudi broadcast media (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
“Some people think the league is not very good,” he says. “But sometimes a very good Premier League team can lose in a cup against (a team) four, five divisions (below them). When you go and you play a game, anything can happen.”
As he talks, the Al Hazm players drift out. Based in Ar Rass, a small city among sand dunes 400 miles from here, they face a long journey and a long season.
Saturday, Taif: Al Nassr v Al Hilal
“You know Jamal Khashoggi?”
It is a startling name to hear in Saudi Arabia. The journalist was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, his killers flown to Turkey on a plane owned by PIF. His body was then chopped up and smuggled out. Asked on 60 Minutes in 2019 if he ordered the murder, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is the son of Saudi Arabia’s king and the country’s de facto ruler, said “absolutely not”, but he took “full responsibility”, confirming the murderers were “working for the Saudi government”.
“You know Jamal Khashoggi?”
The man repeats the question, interested to speak to a journalist, but having first been met by stunned silence. He continues, saying Khashoggi was his friend, before getting skittish and changing the conversation to referees and how much he dislikes Ronaldo. Football is safer to talk about here.
The murder of Khashoggi is one of the reasons players have been criticised for joining the SPL, their presence inevitably improving Saudi’s global image. Another reason is that Human Rights Watch reports that judges in the Gulf nation continue to use principles of codified Shari’ah law to sanction people suspected of having same-sex relations. In 2021, The Athletic spoke directly with LGBTQI+ Saudis, who raised severe concerns over societal shunning and mistreatment by authorities. Jordan Henderson, an England international and Liverpool’s former captain, was criticised when he signed for Al Ettifaq last month (not one of the PIF-owned clubs but rich nonetheless), as the 33-year-old was previously a vocal supporter of LGBTQI+ rights.
GO DEEPER
Jordan Henderson had the trust of my community. Then he broke it
“I think he remains pro-gay rights,” says Michael Emenalo, formerly Chelsea’s technical director but now responsible for recruitment across the SPL. Speaking at Jeddah’s Crown Plaza hotel the morning after the Al Ahli match, he says he finds it “hard to understand why coming here would damage (Henderson’s) legacy”.
“I don’t think it changes anything. I’m pro having a little bit of fun every once in a while but I’m also much more pro respecting the cultures of every country, because I have done that everywhere that I have lived and have never seen one country with the same culture as the other, there’s always something different.
“In some countries, you can drink publicly but it has to be in a brown paper bag and in others you can do this inside your home or not at all. It is what it is. It doesn’t change the views of Jordan Henderson. Jordan Henderson was a professional in the open market and is looking to do the best for him.”
Michael Emenalo talking to journalists (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Emenalo says “narrative” is the biggest concern players have about joining the SPL: “We have to demolish some of these very outrageous narratives out there that there is something wrong with the Saudi league or with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“That’s what (players) worry about, but I cannot tell you how many calls or messages I got last night after players stayed up to watch this game because they wanted to see and, after they saw it, thinking, ‘You know what, it’s not what I expected and I would love to be part of it’.”
The most successful shift of that narrative so far has been the signing of Ronaldo. The Portuguese forward is playing for Al Nassr tonight in the final of the King Salman Club Cup, an international club competition for Arab teams. The final is in Taif, two hours east of Jeddah, past Mecca, up in the hills. For those not making the trip, it is also on television. Some locals gather to watch in a branch of American fast food chain Buffalo Wild Wings on Tahlia Street, an upscale shopping street of Jeddah.
(Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Inside are groups of young men, couples, women with children, groups of women. It is only about a quarter full, but those present watch keenly. On the walls are framed football shirts — Fawaz Al Qarni of Al Ittihad, Mohammad Al Sahlawi of Al Nassr, Lionel Messi’s Barcelona shirt — all seemingly shop-bought rather than match-worn. There are 43 screens, none of which are showing Saudi-owned Newcastle United against Aston Villa, which is being played at the same time as the cup final. Some show old footage of Michael Jordan. Most show the Al Nassr match.
Al Nassr’s opponents, Al Hilal, feature Brazilian striker Malcom, formerly of Barcelona; Serbian international Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, signed from Lazio in Serie A; Ruben Neves, signed from Premier League side Wolves, where he was captain; and Kalidou Koulibaly, another summer recruit from the Premier League, from Chelsea. Neymar will join after the final. More than half of Al Hilal’s squad are internationals, including over a dozen with Saudi caps, among them Saudi superstar Salem Al-Dawsari, scorer in the 2-1 defeat of Messi’s Argentina in the group stage of last year’s World Cup.
Al Nassr feature Mane, Brozovic, and Ronaldo as captain, but Al Hilal take the lead after 51 minutes, with Brazilian winger Michael scoring. Things get worse for Al Nassr when Saudi centre-back Abdulelah Al Amri is sent off. Ronaldo gets the equaliser though and while Buffalo Wild Wings does not go crazy, there are shouts and cheers, the majority clearly being Al Nassr fans or Ronaldo fans. When the match goes to extra time, dance music is put on during the wait. Al Nassr face the impossible.
Or not. In extra time, Ronaldo gets his second, the winner, shortly before going off injured. When the whistle goes he is on his feet though, helped by team-mates, swamped by pats on the back. A boy in Buffalo Wild Wings is wearing an Al Nassr top with Ronaldo printed on the back. All hopped up from refillable fizzy drinks, he shouts “Siu”, repeatedly and loudly. Ronaldo is a global brand and just like the SPL’s other foreign recruits, his stardust is being used for the good of Saudi Arabia now.
A family eats as Ronaldo wins his first trophy in Saudi Arabia (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Sunday, Riyadh: Al Riyadh v Al Wehda
Riyadh is not a pretty city, but it is huge. The Saudi capital has a population of nearly eight million people and is a giant sprawl, intersected by huge straight roads, most of them flanked by modern offices and shops — Dunkin’, Elite Cup Roasters, Falafel Pie, Sahel Mart. Skyscrapers dot the horizon, including PIF’s headquarters.
GO DEEPER
Why Saudi Arabia bought into Premier League soccer
Al Nassr’s club shop is on the Northern Ringroad. At 8pm on a Sunday night, it is not busy. There is a stock problem. Last season’s kit has sold out and this season’s won’t arrive until next week. Instead, customers browse for rucksacks, flasks or an Al Nassr shemagh. There are no photos of Ronaldo on the walls yet, but there is a picture of Mohamed bin Salman and his dad, ubiquitous in Saudi buildings.
The Al Nassr club shop (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Al Nassr are not playing tonight, but Al Riyadh, another local team, is. On the way to the stadium on the south side of the city, an Uber driver asks how people in Newcastle feel about being Saudi-owned. He also asks whether Mohamed Salah, Liverpool’s 31-year-old Egyptian forward, will join the SPL this summer: “Why’s he not come?” He says Saudi football was “bad” but is good now. “I don’t know what is the secret.”
Floodlights are the first indication that the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium is near rather than the structure itself — it is smaller than most top-flight stadiums in Europe, a modest, multi-use venue with an athletics track. The plan is to rebuild it for the 2027 Asian Cup. Nobody is quite sure of its capacity, but it seems about 20,000. Not that all those seats are needed tonight. Outside the ground, military guards look bored. A kiosk selling popcorn has few punters. It is quiet, no crowds arriving.
(Photo: Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Tonight’s match is an SPL fixture, but it seems like barely 1,000 spectators show up — no official tally is announced. A cameraman, redirected from covering the English Premier League, estimates there are more guards, police and stewards than fans. According to an SPL document, live match attendances have increased 180 per cent since 2018 and last season the SPL had its highest-ever live attendances, with 2.2 million spectators, but the numbers are low compared to Europe’s top leagues.
In France’s Ligue 1, the average attendance last season was 23,708, according to Transfermarkt. Italy’s Serie A was 29,537. Spain’s La Liga was 29,584. The English Premier League was 40,236. Germany’s Bundesliga was 42,992. For the SPL, the average attendance last season was 10,197. Jeddah’s Al Itthad had the highest average at 40,453, again according to Transfermarkt. Al Nassr were second with 17,638. Last season’s lowest average was Al Batin, now relegated, with 3,467.
There is no data for Al Riyadh’s attendances last season as they were in the First Division League, finishing fourth, five points behind Al Hazm and nine behind Al Ahli. Usually they would not have been promoted, but because the SPL was expanding from 16 teams to 18, Al Riyadh went into the SPL for the first time in two decades, where they will face some of the world’s superstars, but not tonight.
Al Riyadh fans raise an atmosphere against Al Wehda (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
A man with “supervisor” on his bib, hearing a British journalist, jokes about the SPL’s summer recruitment: “Now England angry,” he laughs. But neither Al Riyadh nor Al Wehda, tonight’s opponents, were bought by the PIF, the investment going to clubs with more fans and success. Al Riyadh’s last silverware was in 1994 when they won the now-defunct Crown Prince Cup. They have never won the league. Al Wehda, who are from Mecca, finished 12th in the SPL last season. Their last silverware was in 1960.
There are foreign players involved though. Al Wehda have Brazilian midfielder Anselmo, 34, who played in Italy, returned to Brazil, and then joined the Mecca side in 2018. Al Riyadh’s most famous foreigner is Didier Ndong, 29, from Gabon, formerly of Sunderland. The English club broke their transfer record to sign him and he made 31 Premier League appearances for them, leaving in 2018. He joined Al Riyadh this week, SPL’s non-PIF teams receiving modest transfer funds from the government.
It is a less famous name who scores the winner for Al Riyadh: Zimbabwe’s former captain Knowledge Musona, who signed from another Saudi side, Al Tai, this summer. By the time the goal goes in, most of Riyadh’s fans have moved into one small section of the main stand, seemingly upon instruction. There, they wave the red and black flags that were handed to them and chant in response to a loudhailer.
Al Riyadh’s mostly young fans watch their team win 1-0 (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Most of them are teenagers. Some wear Al Riyadh tops, some wear casual T-shirts — Tupac, Manchester United, Ajax. Some have plain red T-shirts on, the price tags still hanging from necks. A steward gives them scarves. One boy’s cap says: “MBS: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” When the match gets dull, which it does a lot as the 38C temperature takes its toll despite a 9pm kick-off, some of them playfight.
Al Riyadh win 1-0. “Our team are like Everton, we think (only) of staying in the league,” says Abdullah, who is delighted to have started the season with three points.
News has leaked that Neymar, the most expensive footballer ever when he signed for Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona in 2017 for a fee of €222million, might join Al Hilal. Even though most SPL clubs cannot afford such players, all Saudi fans seem excited: “At least things are changing,” says Abdullah.
Another Al Riyadh fan, Abdulaziz, used to play as a goalkeeper for the club but hasn’t been to the ground for 20 years because they were so bad. Now they are back in the top division, he brought his wife and children to watch. “It’s awesome for me,” he says.
Abdulaziz with his family at the match after 20 years of hurt (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
His club cannot join the recruitment splurge yet, but it does not bother him: “For my team, no, not yet, but we wish in the future.”
Further north, in the centre of Riyadh, is the Kingdom Centre, quiet by the time the Al Riyadh match finishes (though Saudis, including families, tend to stay out late, taking advantage of cooler nights). The Kingdom Centre is a 302-metre tower built in 2002. It was, for a time, the tallest tower in Saudi Arabia. At its foot is a shopping mall, the shops closed at this time, but billboards of Lionel Messi are still lit. At its top is the Four Seasons hotel, where Ronaldo first stayed after signing in January.
Ronaldo has moved since, to a compound — a gated community usually inhabited by westerners and insulated from Saudi life. The wealth of the new recruits is vast, but it is a world away from tonight’s match; the divide between the PIF-owned clubs and those at the bottom, like Al Riyadh, is much greater than the divide in the English Premier League. Emenalo spoke proudly yesterday of the SPL disrupting European football, but its greatest disruption so far has been of Saudi football itself.
The Kingdom Centre, Ronaldo’s temporary home in Riyadh (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Monday, Dammam: Al Ettifaq v Al Nassr
Fly 250 miles east from Riyadh, over almost nothing but desert, and you get to Dammam on Saudi Arabia’s east coast. The city is a causeway away from Bahrain, 80 miles from Qatar as the crow flies, and just over an hour’s flight from Dubai. It is here that Sunderland-born England international Jordan Henderson has moved.
It is an oil town but doesn’t feel like it. It is the fourth-most populated city in Saudi Arabia, but Riyadh has five times more people in it, and while Riyadh sprawls endlessly, Dammam is compact, hugging the Gulf. In Riyadh there are skyscrapers, but in Dammam the buildings are mostly a few storeys high, the ageing floodlights at the Prince Mohamed bin Fahd stadium visible from across the city.
A man proudly wears his Henderson shirt (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
The stadium, built in 1973, is a low, bowl-type structure, flanked by roads on three sides and a car park on the fourth, with a blue athletics track surrounding the pitch. Its ticket office is disused — tickets became digital a year ago — and palm trees sprout around the VIP entrance. In the car park is the stadium’s mosque, the muezzin making the call to prayer at sunset, two and a half hours before the 9pm kick-off.
Outside the perimeter fence, young men sit on rugs selling Ronaldo flags, taking payment on card machines. There is no Henderson merchandise, but one young man has Henderson on the back of his green Al Ettifaq shirt. Many fans are wearing the replica kits. A large group who arrive together on foot, seemingly organised, wear the same type of plain red T-shirt that fans at the Al Riyadh match had on.
“He’s very good,” says one fan, speaking about Henderson. “Better than Ronaldo.”
On the subject of Neymar joining the SPL, he says the league will be better than the English Premier League in a year. “We want Messi.”
Another Al Ettifaq fan, Ahmed, says he is “very happy about this one because I like Liverpool”.
In the Al Ettifaq dressing room, a table of snacks and drinks is ready for the players’ arrival: red grapes, apples, strawberries, oranges, bananas, filter coffee and a pot of tea. There are five treatment tables, a tactics board and a screen. Henderson’s green shirt hangs on one of the pegs with his red captain’s armband.
Inside the Al Ettifaq dressing room (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Tonight’s Al Ettifaq teamsheet: Goalkeeper Paulo Victor (Brazilian); Abdullah Khateeb (Saudi), Jack Hendry (Scotland international), Marcel Tissrand (DR Congo international), Sanousi Al-Hawsawi (Saudi); Ali Abdullah Hazazi (Saudi), Henderson (England international), Faisal Al Ghamdi (Saudi); Robin Quaison (Sweden international), Moussa Dembele (French), Ahmed Al Ghamdi (Saudi).
A few minutes before kick-off, Steven Gerrard, Al Ettifaq’s manager since July, walks out of the tunnel. Fans cheer him and he claps them back. This is his third job in management. The former England and Liverpool captain, who won the European Champions League as a player, managed Rangers to the Scottish Premiership title in 2021 but was sacked by English Premier League side Aston Villa after two months of the 2022-23 season. He applied for two jobs in the Championship, England’s second tier, but didn’t get them. “This was the best thing on the table at the time,” he says.
Steven Gerrard leaving Al Ettifaq’s media centre (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
When the team comes out, there is cheering, drumming, singing, and red pyrotechnics are set off. One half of the stadium is populated by Al Nassr fans (even though their team is based in Riyadh, they comprise about a third of the fans present). Henderson joins his team to applaud the busiest, noisiest section of Al Ettifaq fans. The stadium’s capacity is 35,000, but it is half empty, despite Henderson’s debut.
Though the stadium wasn’t full at Al Ettifaq, those there made up for it (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
Ronaldo is not playing for Al Nassr due to his injury in the cup final. Mane, who won the Premier League and Champions League with Henderson in 2019 at Liverpool, is playing. After signing from Bayern Munich this summer, he said: “My mum is Muslim like me. She was the first to vote for me to go there and my whole family was excited for me to come here, so it was not hard — it is important to my faith.”
After four minutes, Mane scores. Henderson wipes his face. He looks uncomfortable. It is 35C, having been 40C during the day. Winter will be cooler, but for the next couple of months, it will remain hot. When a team-mate is injured after 13 minutes, Henderson gets water from the physio. At the half-time whistle, a coach runs onto the pitch and wraps a cold towel around Henderson’s neck. He looks unsteady on his feet.
The match was down to a walking pace at times during the first half, though just before half-time there was a hint of what was to come: Henderson told Hendry, who signed from Club Brugge in July, to give him the ball. Henderson floated it perfectly into the box. Though the chance was wasted, it was a reminder that he is an elite-level player and after half-time he dominates, his touches cheered by fans. On 47 minutes, Quaison equalises; on 53 minutes, Dembele puts Al Ettifaq 2-1 up.
Henderson speaks after his debut win (Andrew Hankinson/The Athletic)
As they battle to hang onto the lead, an Al Ettifaq player is injured. Henderson yells at Dembele to drop back and cover for the injured player while a throw-in is taken close to the Al Ettifaq box. Dembele gestures that a substitution is being made and to calm down, but it reveals Henderson’s competitive spirit remains. He is substituted by Gerrard just before full time, but Al Ettifaq hang on for the three points.
After full-time, Henderson gives a pitch-side interview in front of SPL branding, then hugs the chairman, who’s wearing a thob, shemagh and an Al Ettifaq scarf. Fans shout to Henderson, asking for him to throw his shirt. He doesn’t throw it, but he does wave as they chant: “Henderson, Henderson, Henderson.” They have a new hero and he, like the other new arrivals, has a new world of football to try to understand.
(Top photo: Andrew Hankinson and Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
