Premier League hypocrisy over Saudi transfer spree is staggering

The Fixture touched on the imminent global collapse of football as we know it a few weeks back. Tongue was firmly planted in cheek, of course, because the way in which the sport has been trending since the appearance of Sky television 31 years ago as an upstart that revolutionised English football has been a drawn out process. The big English clubs have long had the most money to spend in European football but the renegotiation of the tv deal in the last decade suddenly took even the likes of Bournemouth, Norwich City and clubs of their ilk into a different financial stratosphere. Prior to this, Sky's money also attracted the eye of Russian oligarchs, US investment firms and, latterly, oil rich Middle Eastern states. Of course, Scottish football fans know all of this, it has played out right beneath our feet for two decades, the rich getting exceedingly richer while the game in this country remained relatively impoverished. Every once in a while, a talented player would attract the attention of our neighbours in the south – not often, mind you, since the game here appears to be treated with utter disdain by English football – and a meagre financial offer would be forthcoming. For years, those such as Virgil van Dijk, Victor Wanyama and Andy Robertson, would be sold for considerably cheaper than clubs from other European countries could have hoped to charge.

In short, English football – or perhaps more accurately the Premier League – has had the opportunity to do as it pleases, a financial juggernaut that has distorted transfer fees and player salaries across the continent.

Just yesterday it emerged that the owners of Chelsea have bought a majority stake – thought to be 100 per cent or near to it – in the French Ligue 1 club Strasbourg. Chelsea previously had an arrangement with the Eredivisie side Vitesse Arnheim which meant that a number of promising players – some of the best young talents in Europe – were sent out on loan to gain first-team experience in the Dutch top flight.

Southampton, meanwhile, are said to be in the process of buying another club, while Manchester City – whose City Group own a number of clubs across the world – are yet another Premier League outfit who have massive influence on a global scale.

And so it all seems a little hypocritical to hear English football pundits such as Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville expressed concern over the manner in which the Saudi Pro League is attempting to buy up household names such as Bernardo Silva, Riyadh Mahrez and Luka Modric, having recently lured Cristiano Ronaldo and current Ballon d'Or holder Karim Benzema. Of course, those latter two purchases could be explained away as last hurrahs for guys at the end of their playing careers. But now that Saudi is turning its attention to big names with plenty of miles left on the clock there is a concern that has been strangely lacking when previously middling clubs such as Chelsea and City suddenly became financial and competitive behemoths.

“Bernardo Silva is in his peak years & has been one of the best players in Europe for the last five years!” Carragher screeched on Twitter. “I wasn’t worried about the Saudi League taking players in their 30’s, a touch worried with players below the elite [Ruben Neves] but if this happens it feels like a game changer.”

Those comments were echoed by Neville, Carragher's fellow Sky Sports pundit, who observed that the governance of football was “in a mess”. He's right, of course, but this was always likely to be the consequence of the rampant capitalism that Sky helped foster with its ever-increasing, eye-watering contracts that propelled English football into a new domain.

That's not to say that Saudi Arabia's attempted monopolisation of yet another sport – following its disruptive behaviour in golf – is a good thing for football's geopolitics but it is noticeable that two of the Premier League's most influential voices are now asking “to what end?” It has been quite clear for some time that – aside from the benefits that sports washing brings (witness Sky's salivating over Newcastle United over the course of this season) – the gulf state is attempting to position itself in a place where it can be self-sufficient as the natural resources that provided it with its standing on the global stage start to run dry. Sports washing inevitably helps this process, having a league full of global superstars only further aids the process. But then Carragher and Neville should already know this – Roman Abramovich was the first to do it at Chelsea. The same Abramovich – now shamed and forced to sell up – who once had a 10-year anniversary celebration dedicated to him on the satellite broadcaster's news channel.