Gilt transfer

The transfer window in European football came to a close on the evening of September 1, leaving teams with no more chance to plug the gaps that had existed in their squads since June 14. As a result, many had to make third-rate, surplus-to-requirement acquisitions.

Manchester United, for one, found itself in the last-chance saloon, with the barkeep gone on extended leave. No choice, then, but to get smashed and hope for the best over 38 matches, with Arsenal coming up first at the Emirates on September 3. Mouthwatering, as they say nowadays, without a left back, a striker, and quality on the bench in any position.

As clubs scramble to fill positions and make ends meet adhering to Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations, a familiar gripe has taken on a wholly new dimension — sportswashing has once more become the bogey.

To recap, it began with some West Asian countries buying prestigious football clubs to boost their national brands. Then Qatar hosted the 2022 World Cup, practically sanitising an authoritarian country guilty of the most unspeakable violations of human rights.

And now to cap all indignities, comes the Saudi Pro League, which, with its absurd offers to all kinds of stars and players — retirees, journeymen, those still genuinely close to their prime — has taken the transfer market into the stratosphere. It’s open season on managers as well.

Clearly, it was only when authoritarian West Asian states started hoovering up football clubs that the British establishment — especially the media — woke up to the problem. In 2004, the English Premier League (EPL) and lower leagues introduced the “fit-and-proper-person test” to make sure dodgy characters did not even get into the boards of clubs, far less own and run them.

Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003, passing this no doubt stringent test. In 2007, Thaksin Shinawatra bought Manchester City, eventually selling it to the Abu Dhabi honchos. In 2010, King Power of Thailand bought Leicester City. Both these Thai entities presumably passed the “fit-and-proper-person test”. Queens Park Rangers’s history of ownership between 2011 and 2023, between Tony Fernandes and Lakshmi Mittal, must also have been enthusiastically greenlighted.

In 2016, various Chinese companies bought English clubs — chiefly Wolverhampton Wanderers, but also West Bromwich Albion, and Birmingham City. They must all have passed the required tests. Shinawatra sold Manchester City to Abu Dhabi in 2008. Due diligence must have been followed, but it is notable that no enquiries are ever brought to a conclusion against the club.

It was only with the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United and the hosting of the World Cup by Qatar that the English establishment, one of the last bastions of organised hypocrisy, woke up to the menace of sportswashing —the manipulation of a globally popular sport to present an acceptable face to the world. No voices were raised when Russia hosted the World Cup, full four years after the annexation of Crimea. Welcome to sportswashing; so it goes. Now a possible takeover of Manchester United by a Qatari will provoke another round of outrage and calls for stringent means tests.

In the meanwhile, however, the Saudis have pulled off the biggest sportswashing coup possible. By throwing money around, they have completely jiggered the market, or so we’ve been given to believe. A lot of them have been free transfers, considering the recruitment of retirees, but the salaries are boggling: €400 million for Karim Benzema for two years; €86 million for N’Golo Kante for four; £692,000 a week for 33-year-old Jordan Henderson; £36.4 million a year for Fabinho.

And then you have the marquee figures: $200 million a year for two years for a certain 38-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo; and, Neymar Jr is reported at $300 million a year plus add-ons.

In case the EPL and other European establishments start whingeing at this point, certain timely reminders might help calm them down. The top clubs of all the top five European leagues, especially the EPL, have been involved in an arms race that made recruitment unsustainable. Smaller clubs — that is close to 75 per cent — were put to the sword as the elite clubs went on a feeding frenzy.

When it became clear that something had to be done, what was offered was FFP, a toothless instrument that prevents practically nothing and yields some revenue by way of fines. It didn’t prevent Chelsea’s new owners from breaking the bank.

Whingeing and the constant recourse to the moral high ground is a peculiar characteristic of the British establishment, which thought nothing of commercialising football in every way possible, including making it impossible for ordinary folk to get into the stadiums to watch their teams play.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the Saudi Pro League looks like it’s here to stay, which means that European football must come up with radical solutions to stay afloat. Nothing like a good crisis to concentrate the mind.