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It was in Monaco in 2003 for the Champions League draw that David Dein came out with the most memorable line in describing the threat posed by an unknown billionaire who had just bought Chelsea.
“Roman Abramovich has parked his Russian tank in our front garden and is firing £50 notes at us,” the then Arsenal vice-chairman said, although it was remarkable how he then secretly managed to head off Chelsea’s attempts to poach Thierry Henry for £50 million.
Twenty years later, Liverpool are desperately hoping to do the same when it comes to their star player Mohamed Salah. Al-Ittihad are not firing £50 notes but launching a whole barrage of financial artillery as they attempt to bring the striker to the Saudi Pro League.
Without a doubt, Abramovich re-shaped the landscape of the Premier League and was the first of the truly big foreign investors. But even if he made his money in murky circumstances, through state assets, he was not a country, he was not a whole league.
Now ownership of football is not a richman’s plaything but has deep geopolitical ramifications. Make no mistake what the Saudis are doing represents one of the greatest existential threats European football, and certainly the Premier League, has ever faced.
The Saudis are attempting the ultimate flex. On deadline day they have tried to prise one of the biggest names in world football out of one of the biggest and most storied of clubs. Although they have been rebuffed and although Liverpool remain adamant, the Saudi transfer window does not close until September 7. Imagine how it would feel if Salah, the biggest sporting name in the Arab world of course, leaves Liverpool without them being able to sign a replacement?
Rather like LIV Golf, the Saudi Pro League has escalated at an awesome pace. It only went fully professional 16 years ago and last year the biggest foreign stars were the likes of Odion Ighalo, Ahmed Hegazi and Ever Banega. When Cristiano Ronaldo decamped there last December the rest of the world was laughing down its sleeve, even if they marvelled at the money he was making.
No-one is laughing now. It is one thing for older, thirty-something players such as Roberto Firmino, N’Golo Kante, Jordan Henderson and even Karim Benzema and Neymar to go to Saudi Arabia. It looks like one big last pay-day.
But alarm bells should have started to ring when they were followed by Ruben Neves and Riyad Mahrez and more recently Aymeric Laporte and Aleksandr Mitrovic. These are Premier League players absolutely in their prime who have decamped from the self-styled best league in the world.
In Spain, Celta Vigo’s Gabri Veiga chose to join Al-Ahli, earning a rebuke from Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos. Why? Veiga is just 21 and was one of the biggest talents in La Liga with offers from a number of top European clubs. But he passed on them.
It means that Uefa president Aleksandr Ceferin’s dismissal that the Saudi league is “not a threat, we saw a similar approach in China” who “bought player at the end of their careers by offering them a lot of money” sounds like Nero reaching for his fiddle. Similarly, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said he was not concerned. He should be.
This is a monumental power grab and no-one knows where it ends. Salah may be 31 but he is in his prime and only signed a new long-term contract at Liverpool last year.
Only last month his representative Ramy Abbas Issa tweeted: “It we considered leaving LFC last year, we wouldn’t have renewed the contract last summer. Mohamed remains committed to LFC”.
But the Saudis, while undoubtedly liking the noise and hullabaloo they are causing, are surely not pursuing Salah without encouragement.
If Salah leaves then no European league or club is safe. They are probably not safe, anyway. If he does not leave now then maybe he will next year. Kylian Mbappe refused to go even though Paris Saint-Germain accepted a world record £259 million bid but there is already a critical mass of big-name players in Saudi Arabia that means the threat is serious, especially to the Premier League.
Already three Liverpool players have gone, and a fourth with strong links in Sadio Mane. Thiago Alcantara has turned them down while the Saudis have also shown interest in Joe Gomez and Ibrahima Konate.
It is not for no reason they are going after these players. The Premier League is the biggest and most watched league in the world and Liverpool is one of its greatest clubs. But they are all now vulnerable.
England used to, occasionally, lose players to Italy or Spain. Jude Bellingham chose Real Madrid instead of the Premier League. Harry Kane is now in Germany. But they are individual cases. With the Saudi-Pro League we are seeing mass raiding of stars. Salah is just the biggest one so far they have tried to sign from England.
Of course players from all around the world come to the Premier League because it is such a well-organised, well-run competition and life is good in England. But no-one should kid themselves that they do not mainly come here for the money. And if the money is better in Saudi Arabia and enough of their team-mates, countrymen and stars are already there then they will follow.
Mohamed Salah pursuit proof Saudi Arabia poses biggest threat European football has known
If Salah leaves then no European league or club is safe – they are probably not safe anyway