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Saudi Arabia is considering attracting more foreign investors to strengthen its top football league. This is part of the strategic realignment that started with the influx of star players from Europe.
The $700 billion Saudi state wealth fund and state oil company Aramco took control of several professional league clubs last month. One of the unnamed people said that as the talks are over, the new owners are intended to grow the teams’ brands and revenue, and then sell their stake to investors, including global private equity firms, to leverage their experience in managing sports teams. hidden.
The 37-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has made sports a key point in diversifying the economy away from oil, to rid the kingdom of its conservative image and open up more to tourism. Star players like Real Madrid’s 35-year-old Karim Benzema and 32-year-old Chelsea’s Kalidou Koulibaly have announced that they will play in the Saudi league, which is currently home to 38-year-old Portuguese superstar Christiano Ronaldo. The government has also allocated billions of dollars to the LIV Golf Tour, which has attracted top players like Phil Mickelson, 53, and Dustin Johnson, 39.
Saudi Arabian club Al-Ettifaq has also appointed former England and Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard (43) as their new manager.
Private equity firms, which are among the biggest investors in football teams and infrastructure recently, were negotiating to invest in leagues in France and Spain, while a similar plan in Germany was rejected by the clubs. They also acquired stakes in individual parties, including RedBird Capital Partners in AC Milan and Toulouse FC, and Clearlake Capital in Chelsea FC.
The Saudi professional league has worked with sports agency IMG to sign short-term deals with TV broadcasters in nearly 30 markets, including Portugal, China and Italy. Contracts are less than $10 million a year. The person in question said the goal is to improve contract terms as more star players are added and teams increase in value. Earlier this year, the league hired 50-year-old veteran sports law expert Peter Hutton, a former Eurosport and Fox Sports manager, as a consultant.
The kingdom hopes that team privatization will quadruple the Saudi professional league’s annual revenue to $480 million by the end of the decade. The competition made headlines in December when Ronaldo joined a Riyadh-based team on a $200 million annual contract.
A spokesperson for the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Sports did not answer a question about whether the league would like to attract private equity. But he said the 2022-23 season had its highest viewership to date, with more than 2.2 million viewers. The games were broadcast in 170 countries.
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
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