European rivals of Chelsea and Wolves call for inquiry into Saudi spending spree

Exclusive: Saudi Pro League officials are in London this week to discuss deals with both clubs who are trying to meet FFP rules By Tom Morgan, Sports News Correspondent 19 June 2023 • 10:03pm

European rivals of Chelsea and Wolves are calling for fair market investigations into Saudi Arabia’s dramatic haul of big money signings. One top club says teams are using the Saudi Pro League as a “get out of FFP jail free card” while the state embarks on its £500m player spree. The league, which has already signed Karim Benzema this summer, is now turning its attention to Premier League targets.

Telegraph Sport understands the competition, underwritten by Saudi’s Public Investment Fund, is in London this week to clinch a host of deals. It is thought Chelsea alone were originally presented with a proposal for five players amounting to more than £100 million - although one of them, Romelu Lukaku, has since rejected an offer.

The situation is dream timing for clubs attempting to offload star names but is already drawing warnings from rival clubs about potential market distortions.

With negotiations at various different stages for Hakim Ziyech, Kalidou Koulibaly, Edouard Mendy and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, rivals are demanding scrutiny, not least because the deals could play a major part in ensuring Chelsea and other clubs are able to meet the Premier League’s financial rules next year.

Wolves could also take a major step towards satisfying FFP after agreeing a £47m deal to sell captain Ruben Neves to Al Hilal. The Premier League handbook already has a Fair Value Assessment Protocol that must be followed by clubs, but one leading European rival suggested “live investigations” into all the Saudi deals were needed from Uefa due to the scale of potential player investments.

“PIF has so many investments around the world that it should be compelled to prove there are no conflicts of interest as it spends big with its bottomless pit of cash on ageing players,” said one European club, on condition of anonymity. “Watch clubs use Saudi this summer across Europe as a get out of FFP jail free card. It becomes even murkier should PIF have investment interest in both the selling and buying club.”

This sudden spending spree from PIF, a consortium of which owns Newcastle, comes after the fund took over four clubs - including Al Hilal. The plan is to rapidly grow their values ahead of privatising the teams.

Chelsea sources claim interest in their players is purely transactional and down to the club’s popularity in the Middle East. The club denies that PIF has any existing financial interest in the club, despite reports that Clearlake, which owns about 60 per cent of Chelsea, has prior minority investment from PIF. Chelsea reported a loss of £121 million for last season

Todd Boehly and Jonathan Goldstein, two leading figures in the club’s ownership structure, have been linked with separate business ventures with the huge wealth fund as recently as last summer. Real estate firm Cain International, which lists Goldstein as CEO and Boehly as board members, launched a joint project with PIF in August in a $900million investment in luxury hotel group Aman.

Although Chelsea maintain they were already confident about meeting profit and sustainability rules, significant player outgoings were inevitable after £600 million was spent in the past two transfer windows. The club reported a loss of £121 million for last season, despite making a large profit on player sales, and that followed losses of £153.4 million for 2020-21.

Kieran Maguire, a lecturer in football finance at Liverpool University, told Telegraph Sport “if the fees look unusual” then the Premier League could investigate the matter further.

However, he added: “What they can’t do is look at the equally big issue of Chelsea needing to shift costs off their payroll.” Sources close to Chelsea maintained PIF has “zero financial interest or any other interest in Chelsea” and that had been thoroughly vetted at the time of the acquisition.

Clearlake has made approximately 450 investments unrelated to Chelsea and has invested with or received investment from approximately 400 investors across six continents, an insider added. Potential deals this summer will be “purely transactional”.

The Saudi spending splurge, meanwhile, is part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030, which aims for the revenue of the league to increase to £400 million annually by 2030. State sources are defiant over deals being offered. They point to the rapid success at Newcastle in recent years, saying Western scepticism is being overcome.