On the Saudi side, the last gong of the Mercato has now rung. With an incredible track record of transfer spending. It’s a real craze which started with the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo and which is not yet over. L’Saudi Arabia has, in recent months, spectacularly boosted the transfer market to build on the XXL championship. A final transfer window was aimed at Saudi clubs, so it was time to stock up. With 939 million euros spent, the Saudi Arabian Championship is quite simply the second biggest spender of the summer after the Premier League (2.81 billion) but ahead of Ligue 1 (898 million) or even Serie A (854 million).

The Saudi Arabian Championship is in 2nd place!

On the club side, it is Al Hilal, notably with the transfers of Neymar (90 million), Malcom and Otavio (60 million each) which broke spending records. 353 million euros for the Saudi club, compared to 194 million euros for Al-Ahli, the club of Riyad Mahrez, 165 million for Al-Nasser from Cristiano Ronaldo and 110 million for Al-Ittihad, but they received a big boost to recruit the reigning Ballon d’Or, Karim Benzema, on a free transfer. Kanté, Fabinho, Mané, Koulibaly, Henderson, Firmino, Mitrovic, Milinkovic-Savic, Laporte, Mendy and Saint-Maximin have decided to leave this summer. We’re happy to bet this is just the beginning…