Saudi Pro League splashes out £700m on transfers to boost £6BILLION summer spend worldwide

Big spending Saudi clubs contributed a whopping £700million to the £6billion spent on international transfers during the summer window.

Only the English Premier League dropped more cash than the new kids on the football block. Teams in the English top flight spent just under £1.6bn on overseas deals alone, according to FIFA's International Transfer Snapshot which was published on Friday. In total, 7.36bn US dollars (£5.89bn) was spent globally in the summer window, while agents' fees for 2023 are already at a record annual high - 696.6m US dollars or £558m.

The spending on deals in 2023 is a 47 per cent increase on the same period last year, and 26.8 per cent up on the previous mid-year record set in 2019. Saudi Pro League clubs spent £701m on transfers according to FIFA, with Al Hilal's signing of Neymar for a reported £77m from Paris St Germain the biggest single deal involving a Pro League club.

And they could have spent more if they'd gotten their way. Al Hilal also bid a world-record £259m for PSG forward Kylian Mbappe, but the player refused to enter talks.

Al Ittihad, meanwhile, had a bid of £150m rejected for Liverpool striker Mohamed Salah. Saudi clubs' spending on international deals was just ahead of France (£688.8m) and Germany (£610.8m). They also spent more than double the amount laid out by clubs in Spain, where the total was £324.9m.

Saudi spending meant that for the first time, a confederation other than UEFA contributed more than 10 per cent of the total summer spend, with the Asian Football Confederation's figure at 14 per cent.

Four Saudi clubs - Al Hilal, Al Ittihad, Al Nassr and Al Ahli - have been majority-owned by the country's Public Investment Fund (PIF) since June. The fund has assets under