Summer is upon us, which means that football clubs worldwide are busy buying and selling players.
This is also true in Saudi Arabia, where clubs are busy preparing for the 2025/2026 season, which begins at the end of August.
The Saudi transfer window was not supposed to open until July 20, but as Al-Hilal urgently needed to strengthen its offense during the Club World Cup, the Saudi Arabian football association decided to bring the window forward to July 3 with just a few hours’ notice.
Although the early transfer window likely caught several Saudi clubs off guard, they were quick to respond with multi-million-dollar deals. This also applies to Neom SC, which has just been promoted to Saudi Arabia’s top league.
Neom is the name of the gigantic megaproject under construction in the Saudi desert in the northwestern part of the country. The area includes the futuristic city The Line and the mountain destination Trojena, which will host the Asian Winter Games in 2029. Neom will also be the host city for the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
However, the prestigious project has also faced massive criticism, and Danwatch has described how poor working conditions and deaths are a reality for the many thousands of migrant workers Employe in Neom.
In its investigation “Neom’s Danish connections” Danwatch has uncovered how Danish companies such as DSV, Haldor Topsøe, and Bjarke Ingels Group are involved in the project at the instigation of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
But despite allegations of human rights violations, the extensive Neom project continues undeterred, as exemplified by this summer’s transfer window.
Neom’s French Connections
The football club Al-Suqoor – Arabic for “the falcons” – was founded in 1965 in northern Saudi Arabia, about 100 kilometers from the border with Jordan.
As a typical yo-yo team, Al-Suqoor has bounced between Saudi Arabia’s second, third, and fourth-best leagues. In June 2023, the club was acquired by Neom, and a few months later, the club’s logo and name were changed to “Neom Sports Club”.
Since then, club has steadily climbed the rankings. In the 2023/2024 season, Neom SC secured promotion from the 2nd division to the 1st division, and in the following season, the success was completed with a first-place finish and thus promotion to the top Saudi league for the first time in the club’s history.
While Neom SC strengthened its team last summer by signing two Saudi national team players Riyadh Sharahili and Mohammed al-Breik as well as Al-Hilal legend Salman al-Faraj, the club has in this transfer window – like many other Saudi clubs in recent years – looked towards Europe.
On a free transfer, the club has signed 34-year-old Alexandre Lacazette, who previously played for Lyon and Arsenal. In addition, Polish player Marcin Bulka has been bought for 10 million euros from Nice and Algerian Saïd Benrahma for 12 million euros from Lyon.
Most notably, Neom SC has also managed to attract young talent to the club.
20-year-old Nathan Zézé has been signed for 20 million euros from FC Nantes, and 19-year-old Saïmon Bouabré for 10 million euros from Monaco. Both players are active players for France’s U21 and U20 national teams, respectively.
Neom SC also bought Amadou Koné, who plays for the Ivory Coast U23 national team, from Rennes for 13.3 million euros.
The French influence that has characterized Neom SC’s transfer deals is also evident on the coaching bench, where the club hired Christophe Galtier as its new head coach in early July. The Frenchman came from a position at Qatar club Al-Duhail SC but has previously coached Paris Saint-Germain, Nice, and Lille.
Grassroots Sports and Geopolitics
Danwatch wrote in April that the Saudi megaprojects – including Neom – are facing financial challenges, as they are often financed through Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which invests the country’s oil revenues. Oil prices have fallen recently, leaving PIF with less money to spend.
PIF has also invested in Neom, which owns Neom SC. But although PIF has announced cuts to a number of projects, this does not necessarily mean that the Neom SC football club will be affected in terms of its budget.
This is according to Kristian Ulrichsen. He is a researcher at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, where he studies, among other things, the Gulf states’ foreign policy and the role of sports in their strategic positioning.
“100 million euros is of course a lot of money for a football club, but if you look at the big picture, where Saudi projects cost hundreds of billions, the transfer fees are small amounts.”
According to Kristian Ulrichsen, the club also plays an important role in Saudi Arabia’s domestic reform program, Vision 2030.
“The Neom SC football club is central to the country’s ambition to get more Saudis involved in sports, and the club is very focused on strengthening girls’ and women’s football in Saudi Arabia,” he says, adding that the club’s focus on grassroots sports is meant to signal to the Saudi population that the country’s oil billions also benefit those who live outside the major cities of Jeddah and Riyadh.
In addition to building sports infrastructure for the local population, investments in football – both in Neom SC and in the other clubs – also serve a global purpose.
“When Saudi Arabia invests in sports, whether it’s football, golf, boxing, or Formula 1, it’s also because they want to spread the message abroad that the country is changing – regardless of how much real change there actually is. A player like Cristiano Ronaldo reaches a much larger audience than lobbying firms in Brussels or Washington are able to,” says Kristian Ulrichsen.
In addition to Neom SC’s deals, Theo Hernández (Al-Hilal), João Félix (Al-Nassr), and Mateo Retegui (Al-Qadsiah) are among those who have made the move to Saudi Arabia this summer.
The Saudi transfer window closes on September 10.