FOLLOW US

Author and soccer finance expert Kieran Maguire told CNBC on Thursday that Al-Nassr’s signing of Ronaldo was a “marketing exercise” rather than an effort to rival the major European leagues as the Asian country works toward expanding its commercial appeal beyond natural resources.

“If you take a look at the social media following that somebody of Cristiano Ronaldo’s status brings, it’s far greater than that of an individual football club,” Maguire said. 

“Saudi Arabia has a young population, so he will attract that generation. There’s economic benefits, there’s political and societal benefits, and the financial cost is a complete irrelevance.”

Meanwhile, the Saudi PIF’s takeover of Newcastle United was met with criticism across the soccer world. A group called NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing sprung up in protest at the takeover.

Saudi officials have consistently denied allegations of sports washing in their various sporting pursuits. The Newcastle takeover consortium led by British businesswoman Amanda Staveley insists the PIF is independent of the Saudi government.

Ownership controversies have also surrounded Premier League champions Manchester City (owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group) and French champions Paris Saint-Germain (owned by Qatar Sports Investments). 

“PIF could go down a similar route to the UAE in having the City Football Group and going for a multi-club ownership model, where effectively you have a mothership and you have a lot of satellites,” he suggested. 

Aside from its flagship club Manchester City, the ADUG’s City Football Group now owns nine other clubs across four continents with consistent branding and availability of resources.

“From a financial point of view, that’s actually turning out to be quite successful because you can have continuity in terms of culture and philosophy at clubs, you can transfer players around to help their development, and then you can start to sell them at higher prices, so it’s actually proven to be, these days, a pretty smart model,” Maguire added.

Alternatively, given the number of high net worth individuals in Saudi Arabia likely to be interested in building on the Newcastle United acquisition, he suggested other high-profile clubs could come into Riyadh’s sights. 

Both Liverpool and Manchester United, arguably the two biggest clubs in England in terms of global profile, have publicly declared that they are open to investment, and possibly even a full sale.

″[The Saudis] have seen the positive response from Newcastle fans — there are two clubs which are publicly up for some form of investment in Liverpool and Manchester United and no disrespect to Newcastle United, they’re much bigger fish,” he said.