Summer Transfer Window 2023: Who has signed for Saudia Arabia clubs?

The 2023 summer transfer window has seen big-name players such as Ruben Neves, Karim Benzema and Roberto Firmino all move to clubs in Saudia Arabia for lucrative offers - and more will follow.

Here is every high-profile player that has moved to the Saudi Pro League since their transfer window opened on July 1, and it will close on September 7.

Sadio Mane - Al Nassr

Sadio Mane has joined Saudi Pro League side Al Nassr from Bayern Munich. The ex-Liverpool forward spent only a year in the Bundesliga after leaving Anfield, and now joins up with former Man Utd forward Cristiano Ronaldo at his new club.

Age: 31
Signed from: Bayern Munich
Fee: £24m
Reported wage: £33m per year

Allan Saint-Maximin - Al Ahli

Allan Saint-Maximin will partner former Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez and ex-Liverpool striker Roberto Firmino in Al Ahli's frontline. Maximin scored 13 goals in 124 games and registered 21 assists for Newcastle after joining in August 2019 from Nice.

Age: 26
Signed from: Newcastle
Fee: £23m
Reported wage: unknown

Riyad Mahrez - Al Ahli

Riyad Mahrez has completed his move from Manchester City to Saudi Arabian club Al Ahli. City agreed a fee understood to be worth up to £30m with Al Ahli for the Algeria international.

Age: 32
Signed from: Man City
Fee: £30m
Reported wage: £25.6m per year

Jordan Henderson - Al Ettifaq

Jordan Henderson ended his 12-year stay at Liverpool during which he won every major trophy. Henderson will link up again with ex-Liverpool captain and former team-mate Steven Gerrard, who is manager of Al Ettifaq.

Age: 33
Signed from: Liverpool
Fee: £12m
Reported wage: £18.2m per year

Cristiano Ronaldo - Al Nassr

After his acrimonious departure from Manchester United,the Greatest footballer of all time, Ronaldo headed to Saudi Arabia as a statement signing that told the footballing world the league meant business.

Age: 38
Signed from: Man Utd
Fee: Free transfer
Reported wage: £173m per year

Karim Benzema - Al Ittihad

Reigning Ballon D'Or winner Benzema followed his former Real Madrid team-mate, leaving the Spanish capital after his contract expired having won five Champions League titles during his stay.

Age: 35
Signed from: Real Madrid
Fee: Free transfer
Reported wage: £172m per year

Roberto Firmino - Al Ahli

The highest-scoring Brazilian in Premier League history, Firmino enjoyed a long and emotional goodbye to the Liverpool supporters, among whom he was a firm favourite after eight years at Anfield.

Age: 31
Signed from: Liverpool
Fee: Free transfer
Reported wage: £17m per year

N'Golo Kante - Al Ittihad

Like his fellow France international Benzema, Kante headed for the Gulf on a free transfer as he opted to leave Chelsea at the end of his deal, albeit with considerable concerns over his fitness.

Age: 32
Signed from: Chelsea
Fee: Free transfer
Reported wage: £86.2m per year

Edouard Mendy - Al Ahli

Mendy lost his place as first-choice goalkeeper at Chelsea having arrived at the club in 2020. He made just 10 Premier League appearances last season before opting for a move to Saudi Arabia.

Age: 31
Signed from: Chelsea
Reported fee: £16m
Reported wage: £9.4m per year

Ruben Neves - Al Hilal

Portugal international Neves had helped Wolves out of the Sky Bet Championship before enjoying five Premier League campaigns at Molineux, establishing himself as one of the highest-regarded midfielders in the division - something that earned him a reported £47m move.

Age: 26
Signed from: Wolves
Fee: £47m
Reported wage: £15.6m per year

Jota - Al Ittihad

Having hit 15 goals to help Celtic win a domestic treble, former Portugal youth international Jota clearly caught the eye of the money-men in Saudi Arabia and made the £25m move at the start of July.

Age: 24
Signed from: Celtic
Fee: £25m
Reported wage: £10m per year

Fee: £51.5m
Reported wage: £18.2m per year

Moussa Dembele - Al Ettifaq

The former Celtic striker left Lyon after scoring just three goals in 20223/23 to sign a four-year deal which sees him team up with Steven Gerrard and Jordan Henderson in Saudi Arabia.

Age: 27
Signed from: Lyon
Fee: Free
Reported wage: Unknown

Jack Hendry - Al Ettifaq

The Scotland international joined Club Brugge in 2021 and went on to make 32 appearances in the Belgian Pro League. Having spent time on loan in Serie A with Cremonese last season, the opportunity to play under Steven Gerrard proved too good to turn down.

Age: 28
Signed from: Club Brugge
Fee: £6.5m
Reported wage: £15.2m per year

Malcom - Al Hilal

Following the arrivals of Koulibaly, Neves and Milinkovic-Savic, Al Hilal further bolstered their ranks with the signing of the Brazil international who topped scored in Russia as Zenit clinched the league title.

Age: 26
Signed from: Zenit St Petersburg
Fee: £51.5m
Reported wage: £18.2m per year

Seko Fofana - Al Nassr

The Ivory Coast International has joined Cristiano Ronaldo's Al Nassr side, where he penned a three-year deal. Fofana moves to Saudi Arabia having helped Lens finish second in Ligue 1 behind champions Paris Saint-Germain.

Age: 28
Signed from: Lens
Fee: £21.5m
Reported wage: £12.9m per year

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic - Al Hilal

Lazio's player of the season in 2020-21 and 2021-22, Milinkovic-Savic had been touted as a midfielder who would make his mark at the highest level of European football. Now, though, he will be turning out in the Saudi Pro League after a reported £34.3m switch.

Age: 28
Signed from: Lazio
Fee: £34m
Reported wage: £17m per year

Marcelo Brozovic - Al Nassr

Brozovic bowed out of Inter Milan after captaining the Serie A side in their Champions League final loss to Manchester City, the 30-year-old Croatia midfielder heading to Saudi after eight seasons and five major trophies in Italy.

Age: 30
Signed from: Inter Milan
Fee: £15m
Reported wage: £35m per year

Neymar Jr

Neymar Jr to Al Hilal

The Brazilian International has joined Al Hilal side, where he penned a two-year deal

Age: 31
Signed from: PSG
Fee: €100m
Reported wage: unknown

Source: https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1691029394998128641?t=y_crKw76pABRl1uzvUHjBg&s=19

All these players have less than 7years to end their careers. There’s nothing special in using money to attract these semi retired players.

Man city attracted the likes of Robinho, Adebayor, Toure brothers, Nasri and others with money

PSG attracted Mbappe, Neymar and others too

Chelsea did too

Newcastle is doing same

Man U fans can’t wait for Saudi to take over.

Messi is the only player in this category to turn down such a lucrative offer.

CR7 38
Benzema 35
Henderson 33
Kante 32
Mahrez 32
Neymar 31
Mane 31
Firmino 31

If the league is attractive, Mbappe and Osimhen will not reject them.

We will be seeing prime players like
Haaland
Mbappe
Osimhen
Vinicius
Musiala
Pedri
Saka
Rashford
Enzo
Foden
Martinelli
Nkunku
Gvardiol

Great100000:
See money on.

The one that surprised me most is that of Neymar, I can't believe it.

But since money is involved, anything fit possible.

Although I respect both Messi and CR7 so much, this is Ronaldo's effect again.

Nobody talks about the Saudi Arabia League before and all of a sudden top players in Europe are going there now.

[You are right bro, some players are been going to Saudi but nobody notice untill Thier king 👑 , the greatest of all time went there. Truly he as good important on the League and the whole world can see the impact.

as for Neymar Jr, I don't really see him as a good player Sha, check CR7 and Messi, u hardly count the days of Thier injuries, they always smart and careful. That's why both kings reigns for manu years.

U can never hear that Messi or Ronaldo play a match and go injury for many weeks. Neymar cans dribble like Messi or skillful or run like Rolando. I prefer Mbappe pass him..

So it's better for him to go and make Money. No good club will sign or pay him that huge wages

Brozovic rejected Barcelona's offer just to play in Al Nassr.

This is Ronaldo's effect on the league

Let's see how many will join Messi

Zee0007:
Brozovic rejected Barcelona's offer just to play in Al Nassr.

Everybody want to play with the greatest 👑

Lalasticlala

saintjimos:
This is Ronaldo's effect on the league

Let's see how many will join Messi

MLS clubs can’t compete with Saudi in terms of finances.

Money is the pulling force. The day MLS clubs starts offering mega deals, you will see the difference.

Saudi Arabia money is doing wonders.

obembet:


[You are right bro, some players are been going to Saudi but nobody notice untill Thier king 👑 , the greatest of all time went there. Truly he as good important on the League and the whole world can see the impact.

as for Neymar Jr, I don't really see him as a good player Sha, check CR7 and Messi, u hardly count the days of Thier injuries, they always smart and careful. That's why both kings reigns for manu years.

U can never hear that Messi or Ronaldo play a match and go injury for many weeks. Neymar cans dribble like Messi or skillful or run like Rolando. I prefer Mbappe pass him..

So it's better for him to go and make Money. No good club will sign or pay him that huge wages


Nlfpmod

With $20 billion budget, even UEFA president will be tempted to move.

Haters can deny the influence he’s had on this Saudi project all they want, it wouldn’t still change the fact that his presence in the league also gave rise to the move of all these players you now see going there. The money being paid ? It’s also a huge factor!

You think if they had started with Benzema , Firminho or Neves, you will have all these players going there ? Or you would have sports stations jostling for rights to air ? Lol.

If Messi had joined Ronaldo in Saudi, Guess what ? The number of players you see there would be double of what you have now. So make una rest .

Even in the US, stars of other sports went to watch his match, if it was only Busquet you think they would have gone to watch ?

Players have this influence, some just happen to have it more !

7 years in Europe for those players btw 31 -35 is enough to still give more.

These days no matter how good your product is, organizations still look for influencers, still do adverts just to promote it.

CR7’s success has always been a hard pill for many of you to swallow since 05/06, so it’s nothing new. Una go dey alright.

Cristiano ronaldo is the greatest thing to ever happen to sports 😍

Hmmm

Money don spoil football..

Their current approach of buying European near-retirement players is in my opinion terrible. We already have the Chinese Super League as a testimony of what happens with this approach:

First of all the players that arrive they do so with a clear mentality of retirement, so their level will drop a lot compared to when they were in Europe. Maybe Cristiano Ronaldo is the sole exception because he is the most competitive and hard-working player in football history. But that will not be the case with players like say Benzema or Messi.

Secondly and perhaps most importantly, with Saudi Arabia’s approach you educate your audience to watch superstars over watching football. It is no longer of interest “What will Al Nassr win this season?” it is of interest “What will Cristiano Ronaldo win this season?”. This naturally means when these old European superstars retire or go to other clubs in 1 or 2 years, not only will your audience drop dramatically like it did in Al Nassr’s last game this season when they announced Ronaldo wouldn’t play. It will drop lower than what the audience was before the superstars arrived, because even the original fans of the league will be swept by the wave of “superstars make football”, so they will follow the superstars to their new teams or seek for new superstars to follow in Europe. They will simply find uninteresting to watch Al Nassr again after Ronaldo is gone for example.

So the approach of buying old superstars can only lead to the Chinese Super League outcome. A depressive league that not even the country’s nationals watch anymore.

Now, assume it does somehow work. That’s not enough to compete with Europe. Europe is not considered the elite of the elite because it has one strong league. It is considered the elite because it has several strong leagues, so continental tournaments like the Champions League are of peak level. This pushes competitiveness to another level because now every single team has a reason to fight for at least classifying to that continental competition, whereas if the continent is not strong, the mid-table positions in the league have no incentive to try to classify to them, and already don’t believe in their chances to win the league so they conform with mid-table.

Even if Saudi Arabia succeeds, it is unlikely other Asian leagues succeed to the point of making an interesting continental competition. That’s out of Saudi Arabia’s hands.

In my opinion, the best approach to strengthen a league is what the Mexican League does. Particularly for a country that has been unable to raise as much national talent as is Mexico for example and as is Saudi Arabia. You don’t have many outstanding Mexican or Saudi football players.

So although Mexico at a football level is not very good as of creating Mexican talent, its league is extremely popular and catches a lot of audience from the entire American continent and even from abroad.

Saudi league gaining stars to rise like 2go of those years😀

Hmmm

All for the money

For your UK used and new smart tv sets and soundbars, check my signature.

I'm better than all of them.

The power of money...

Waow

Arab money

No financial fairplay in Saudiarabia.

Those arab billionaires are just using their pocket money.

Saudi that used to be a dead league now have 2 former balon dor winners playing in that league ...
Telles of Manchester United
Koulibaly of Chelsea
Fabinho of Liverpool
Christian Tello
Ever baniga
David ospina
Steven Gerrard as coach

Players like modric, lewandowski , Di Maria and De Gea are also being prepared

Why is none of these Saudi club coming for Nicholas Pepe? at least he has his two legs intact.

Pre-retirement age players no even dey reason China again. Na Saudi Arabia now 🇸🇦

CR7 and money effect

Even Neymar

Mtcheew.

Money speaks a lot.. The money factor and the Ronaldo effect..

Money has only one language and one sentence which Is 'U need more of me'..

This indicates the power of money in football.