Jamie Carragher has urged football bodies in the Premier League to stop Saudi Arabia from taking over the sport after a top player in the English top flight was rumored as a transfer target for the Middle East region.
Despite playing a key role in Manchester City’s treble winning campaign in 2022/23, Bernardo Silva is supposedly negotiating a big-move deal to join Cristiano Ronaldo and a host of other players in making the move to Saudi Arabia. Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante has already joined Ittihad, while Wolves star Ruben Neves is on his way to Al-Hilal.
But the capture of Silva would mean quite a lot, with MARCA claiming he is ‘on the verge’ of a move to the Saudi Pro League. Seeing as the Portuguese is one of the best midfield names in Europe, Carragher says that such a move could ignite an exodus of high class players.
Carragher makes case against Saudi’s recent transfer splurge
“Bernardo Silva is in his peak and has been one of the best players in Europe for the last five years!” he tweeted. “I wasn’t worried about the Saudi League taking players in their 30s, a touch worried with players below the elite (Neves) but if this happens it feels like a game changer.”
The country has already invested a lot in other sports, with the controversial LIV Golf concept causing controversy within the sport. Formula 1, WWE and boxing have also exploited the huge sums of money on offer to host events there.
And Carragher added: “Saudi have taken over golf, the big boxing fights and now they want to take over football!! This sports washing needs to be stopped!” And his plea comes on the same day that fellow sky pundit Gary Neville called for the Premier League to block players heading to Saudi.
Sharing a similar line of thought, Gary Neville also told the BBC: “The Premier League should put an instant embargo on transfers to Saudi Arabia to ensure the integrity of the game isn’t being damaged. Checks should be made on the appropriateness of the transactions.
“If it comes through that process, obviously transfers could open up again. But I do believe, at this moment in time, transfers should be halted until you look into the ownership structure at Chelsea and whether there are beneficial transfer dealings that are improper.”
Questions remain as to whether the Saudi League can be put in check or forced to stop their outrageous spending. However, given that they are not under UEFA are not bound to follow the directives of the European football body, it would be difficult to curtail the activities from Saudi Arabia.
