Al-Ahli offers €200 million per year; Vini Jr declines

The football world began its week with a headline that shook the transfer market.

Al-Ahli, backed by the Saudi investment fund, reportedly offered Vini Jr a five-year contract worth €200 million annually.

The Real Madrid and Brazil national team star swiftly declined the offer and is expected to remain with the Merengues.

Learn how the Saudi fund manages to offer such astronomical figures and the intentions behind these signings.

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Saudi Arabia’s transfer system

Unlike almost all leagues worldwide, where each club has the autonomy to choose and pay for players as they see fit, the situation here is slightly different.

Given that 75% of the clubs are state-owned, belonging to the Public Investment Fund (PIF), and the rest are associations linked to these clubs, the league’s transfer system is unique.

There is a committee responsible for player transfers, deciding on the needs of each institution to build their squads.

Image: Folha de SP

Thus, each club has a specific budget for each transfer window.

Considering the virtual monopoly of the Saudi Investment Fund, which owns Al-Hilal, Al-Ahli, Al-Ittihad, and Al-Nassr, there is a vested interest in maintaining a balance among the most popular teams.

All this is aimed at developing football in the region to the point where it becomes one of the most followed in the world, competing with the Premier League and La Liga.

Moreover, not only did the 2022 Qatar World Cup draw attention to this part of the globe, but the 2034 World Cup will also be held in Saudi Arabia.

Indeed, the football transfer market keeps breaking records window after window, being an extremely lucrative business.

However, it’s hard to imagine that such investments will provide returns and generate profit through traditional football-related revenue streams.

There is much talk about the local rulers’ attempts to cover up potential human rights violations through football.

These claims might make some sense but fall short when considering that no similar scrutiny is given to the vast sums of money spent by the Premier League or the billion-dollar contracts in various American sports. These are countries that have waged and continue to wage numerous wars around the world.

In reality, it’s more of the same old narrative war between the Western and Eastern worlds, although criticisms of the Saudi dictatorship’s regime are valid in many areas.

The fact is that, with the goal of drawing unprecedented attention to Saudi Arabia, nothing beats having the best player in the world from the last season, as well as a media superstar.

Additionally, the Saudi market would start shedding the stigma of bringing in ageing stars, who only go there to end their careers with hefty paychecks.

It also dispels the backstage rumours that the transfer tap was being turned off.

Image: REUTERS/Ahmed Yosri

Vini Jr declines Al-Ahli

Currently, Vini Jr earns around €20.8 million per year from Real Madrid, under a contract valid until 2027.

Not bad, right?

However, the offer Vini Jr turned down from Al-Ahli was worth €200 million per year for five years, which would have been the largest contract in the history of all sports.

In other words, Vini’s current annual earnings amount to just one-tenth of what he was offered.

At the end of the contract, Vinicius Jr would have entered the top 0.0000004% of the world’s richest people, the billionaires.

Yet, he belongs to a much smaller and far more exclusive group, to be precise.

Today, he is the best player on the planet, playing for the greatest club in history, a feeling that cannot be bought with any amount of money when it comes to football passion.

Let’s also agree that the €20.8 million annual salary paid by Real Madrid is nothing to scoff at.

Joking aside, Vini knows that a move to Saudi Arabia at this moment would virtually eliminate his chances of winning the Ballon d’Or, not to mention the difference between winning the UEFA Champions League and the AFC Champions League.

That’s not all. Even without Vini Jr’s lack of interest in joining Al-Ahli, there is a “small” obstacle called Real Madrid.

Of course, Los Blancos would not let their best player go easily and have made it clear that if the PIF is interested in securing the player, they must do so by paying his release clause, which is already around €1 billion.

Do you believe the Saudis might pay the clause to sign Vini Jr?

Image: Instagram

Written by Vitor F L Miller.