Why Salah said no to the SPL

The Saudi Pro League is learning to live within its means — and its rivals are cashing in. Saudi clubs cut their summer transfer spending nearly in half y-o-y as the league ties recruitment funding to sporting and commercial performance and clubs under the Public Investment Fund's (PIF) control come under tighter budget discipline. Turkey’s Super Lig and the US’ Major League Soccer are moving into the space the Kingdom is vacating, picking up the marquee names that once defaulted to Riyadh and Jeddah. Mohamed Salah’s decision to take his final act to Trabzonspor rather than the SPL is the clearest sign yet that the league’s pull on the game's biggest stars has limits.

REMEMBER- The PIF placed tighter financial controls at Al Nassr after the club's debt topped SAR 800 mn. Al Nassr is one of the fund's Big Four SPL clubs, which together face budget cuts of USD 200-400 mn as the PIF tightens spending. Club boards are assembling litigation teams ahead of next season, bracing for contract disputes with players whose salaries can no longer be met in full.

Where do we stand so far?

The league is cheaper to run, but worth more: The SPL's aggregate player market value rose 7.7% y-o-y to some EUR 1.18 bn at the start of the season, ranking 11th worldwide, according to Transfermarkt data. Al Hilal tops the domestic table at EUR 221.7 mn (62nd globally), a whisker ahead of Al Ahli at EUR 220 mn (63rd). Al Ittihad is third at EUR 151.5 mn (87th), followed by Al Qadsiah at EUR 143.3 mn (90th) and reigning champion Al Nassr at EUR 137.2 mn (93rd).

The spending tap, meanwhile, tightened sharply: Summer transfer outlays fell 47.7% to EUR 222 mn from EUR 421 mn a year earlier, leaving the SPL eighth globally for transfer-market activity. What spending occurred was heavily concentrated at the top: Al Hilal and Al Ahli accounted for 67% of the total, while six clubs — Al Hilal, Al Ahli, Al Ittihad, Al Nassr, Al Qadsiah, and Al Diriyah — made up more than 97%.

The buys the league did make were targeted: Al Hilal signed winger Crysencio Summerville from West Ham United, making him the league’s most valuable player, while Al Ahli brought in Francisco Trincao from Sporting. Al Qadsiah landed Manchester City midfielder Tijjani Reijnders, and newly promoted Al Diriyah added former Everton midfielder Idrissa Gueye. Notice the pattern: these are players in or near their prime, bought to hold value, not end-of-career trophy signings.

Behind the numbers

A new funding formula is doing the rationing: The league overhauled how its Player Acquisition Center of Excellence (PACE) program allocates recruitment funding, moving to a second phase that pegs money to performance. Under the new model, only 22% of funds are split equally among clubs, with 22% tied to sporting results, 28% to television viewership, and 28% to commercial performance. The league is framing the shift as graduating from market-building to governance: Phase one — which it credits with a 221% rise in clubs’ aggregate market value and a 353% jump in combined club and commercial revenues since 2023 — established the market; phase two makes clubs earn their allocations.

Other one-offs also weighed on the numbers: The season kicked off some 15 days earlier than usual, compressing the window, while attention (and budgets) shifted toward the 2026 World Cup. Meanwhile, last summer’s exceptional spending set a high base for comparison.

Our take: The SPL is being folded into the same capital-discipline logic now governing the Kingdom's gigaprojects. Rising fiscal pressures limit Riyadh's appetite for spending with limited returns — particularly with geopolitical headwinds still stressing the economy — and the state is already trimming megaproject outlays to prioritize essential infrastructure for the 2034 World Cup and Expo 2030. Phase one of the SPL project bought global relevance with open cheques. Phase two has to prove there's a business underneath.

Turkey and the US are filling the void

The Super Lig had the summer the SPL used to have: Mohamed Salah joined Trabzonspor, Mason Greenwood moved to Fenerbahce for some EUR 39 mn, and Dusan Vlahovic signed for Besiktas — joining a league that already counts Victor Osimhen, Leroy Sane, and N’Golo Kante. Turkey is also chasing the hosting business: Istanbul will host the 2027 Spanish Super Cup on 2-7 February.

MLS is capitalizing on its World Cup moment: Antoine Griezmann joined Orlando City, Robert Lewandowski moved to Chicago Fire, Casemiro signed for Inter Miami, and Alexis Sanchez landed at CF Montreal. The league is riding the US’ post-2026 World Cup emergence as a major football market, staging its All-Star Game and the Leagues Cup alongside the regular season.

Salah is the case study in what the SPL just lost: With every major title won at Liverpool and no appetite to wear another English club’s shirt, the sporting options largely leveled out for the Egypt captain — leaving the financial package as the deciding factor, MBC football analyst Ahmed Ezz tells EnterpriseAM. The SPL was the natural Arab destination, with his name long linked to a league fielding Ronaldo, Benzema, and Kante. He passed.

“Salah chose not to play outside Europe in his final seasons — keeping his image framed within Europe in the eyes of the Arab world,” Ezz says. Turkey pays money comparable to a US move, he argues, “but with more authentic football crowds, far more devoted to their teams.” That’s the same pitch that convinced Victor Osimhen to commit to Galatasaray despite interest from title-contending clubs in England and Italy.

Proximity to Egypt sealed it: A lighter physical load than Liverpool demanded lets Salah conserve energy for national-team duty as he chases the Africa Cup of Nations still missing from his trophy cabinet after Egypt's strong 2026 World Cup run.

And Turkey gets the branding win: “Mohamed Salah’s decision to join Trabzonspor wasn’t on anyone's agenda,” The Athletic's football analyst Ahmed Walid tells us. The club keeps him in European competition — Trabzonspor features in the 2026-2027 Europa League — on high wages, “which is important considering that this is probably his last paycheck,” in a league competitive enough to matter.

The kicker cuts directly at the SPL: “Salah’s arrival makes him the definite superstar of the league, rather than being behind Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi,” Walid tells us.

The gist: The galaxy of stars Riyadh assembled is now, paradoxically, a recruiting handicap for players who want top billing.

Looking ahead, restructuring and private capital will play a bigger role

Expect a bumpy adjustment in the mid-table: The revised PACE model puts the most pressure on mid-tier and financially stretched clubs, which will need to control wages, sell players, or restructure costly contracts — the same squeeze already sending club boards lawyering up for disputes with players they can no longer pay in full.

That pressure should also accelerate the push for private capital: The PIF's sale of 70% of Al Hilal to Kingdom Holding offers an early template for how ownership could evolve as the league works to wean itself off state funding.