Is Saudi Arabia a genuine threat to the Premier League’s grip on football’s transfer market?
In Monte Carlo – where wealth is flaunted on Saudi scales – the powerbrokers of European football gathered to party and to plan the season ahead.
Publicly, many were dismissing any threat to the global supremacy of their competitions from the rising force.
But power is undeniably shifting.
The footballing landscape is being reshaped by Saudi Arabia, while some seem in denial about the heft of football’s new disruptors.
A turbo-charged spending splurge has enticed £700m of male talent from European clubs this summer alone to add a sheen to their state-funded clubs.
And there is still another week of the transfer window in the Gulf nation to go.
Another week to perhaps persuade Liverpool to part with Mohamed Salah if a fee of £150m proves too hard to resist – having already sold captain Jordan Henderson.
Perhaps only a Premier League could sacrifice such a windfall – even for the man relied on for goals.
Only England’s top division has outspent Saudi clubs in this transfer window, with their transfers’ totaliser ticking over £2bn for the first time.
How European clubs from the top nations have spent in this season’s summer transfer window
Few have done more transfer trades at more Premier League clubs than Damien Comolli – one of the game’s most experienced club executives.
Encountering the former Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham executive on the sidelines of the UEFA gatherings, he was in no doubt about the resolve in Riyadh to make a success of it.
Is that a threat to the Premier League?
Mr Comolli told Sky News: “I definitely do. I think people who deny it are either lying to themselves or they are a bit blind.
“But they’re here to stay and I think they’re going to invest more and more money, be more and more competitive, and be more and more aggressive.”
Damien Comolli – one of football’s most experienced club executives
He does think players still relish the chance to play in the Premier League or at the giants of the continent in Spain and Germany.
But then Saudi Arabia could prove irresistible.
Mr Comolli, currently president of French club Toulouse, said: “All the big clubs in Europe have got a challenge on their hands with the financial power of the Saudi clubs… which could have an impact on the Premier League.”
Those who have witnessed the growth of the Premier League are more cautious about readily ceding the standing as the world’s No 1 domestic competition.
Brighton chief executive Paul Barber told Sky News: “You never know what’s going to happen in the future.
“But I think at the moment, the Premier League’s brand, the quality of the clubs we have, the names of those clubs, just the respect that English football has around the world, I think the Premier League will continue to be the flagbearer for many years to come.”
Brighton chief executive Paul Barber
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A swagger that comes from vastly eclipsing spending across Europe.
Clubs in any rival league didn’t even collectively spend half of that – perhaps a sign of more astute financial management.
That is seen at Brighton which has made a success of turning players into profit with £110m and rising being banked from Chelsea for this summer’s British record sale of Moisés Caicedo.
Chelsea broke the British transfer record to sign Moises Caicedo from Brighton this summer
And Brighton are now preparing for their first ever foray into a European competition.
Speaking after Friday’s Europa League draw, Mr Barber said: “We’d all like to be more sustainable and even more profitable.
“But that’s tough when we’re competing in the world market for the best players. But hopefully this summer transfer window will show again that the Premier League will be even stronger.”
A Deloitte tally – provided to Sky News on Friday early evening – had the Premier League spending on £2.2bn.
Italy’s Serie A was on £720m, France’s Ligue 1 on £678m, Germany’s Bundesliga on £630m and Spain’s La Liga on £352m.
These are leagues that will benefit from the Saudi bailout as cash is unloaded on clubs to part with their prized assets.
Neymar arrives in Riyadh after signing for Al Hilal
Al-Ettifaq coach Steven Gerrard poses for a photograph with Jordan Henderson
The Saudis are seen to some as the destabilising clubs in Europe as sport is used to distract from the kingdom’s human rights violations and reshape the country’s image.
This has been a summer transfer window – but it is one still dominated by the wealth of English clubs.
But for how much longer with the Saudis determined chip into the dominance of Europe funded by their oil wealth?
“I think you’ve got to take any competition for your players and your talent seriously,” Mr Barber said.
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“I don’t know where their end point is, what their overall ambition is, but certainly they are making a statement and we have to respect that.
“But at the moment, I think there are a lot more players that want to be in the Premier League than any other league in the world.
“And that hopefully will continue to make our league the most popular of the most watched and the most compelling.”
World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community. and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
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Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Mr Trump it is now being as turned on, as France, along with the rest of Europe, finds itself in what many would argue is a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
World
Donald Trump’s 104% tariffs on China – and other levies on ‘worst offenders’ – in effect this morning
Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on what he calls “the worst offenders” come into effect at 5am UK time, with China facing by far the biggest levy.
The US will hit Chinese imports with 104% tariffs, marking a significant trade escalation between the world’s two largest superpowers.
At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal with the US,” before saying: “It was a mistake for China to retaliate.
“When America is punched, he punches back harder.”
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White House announces 104% tariff on China
After Mr Trump announced sweeping levies last week – hitting some imported goods from China with 34% tariffs – Beijing officials responded with like-for-like measures.
The US president then piled on an extra 50% levy on China, taking the total to 104% unless it withdrew its retaliatory 34% tariff.
China’s commerce ministry said in turn that it would “fight to the end”, and its foreign ministry accused the US of “economic bullying” and “destabilising” the world’s economies.
‘Worst offender’ tariffs also in effect
Alongside China’s 104% tariff, roughly 60 countries – dubbed by the US president as the “worst offenders” – will also see levies come into effect today.
The EU will be hit with 20% tariffs, while countries like Vietnam and Cambodia see a 46% levy and 49% rate respectively.
The UK was not included on this list, and instead saw a “baseline”, worldwide 10% tariff on imported goods in effect from last Saturday.
At the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer promised the government was ready to “shelter British businesses from the storm”.
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What’s going on with the US and China?
Since the tariffs were announced last Wednesday, global stock markets have plummeted, with four days of steep losses for all three of the US’ major indexes.
As trading closed on Tuesday evening, the S&P 500 lost 1.49%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.84%.
According to LSEG data, S&P 500 companies have lost $5.8tn (£4.5tn) in stock market value since last Wednesday, the deepest four-day loss since the benchmark was created in the 1950s.
Global stock markets have been reeling since Trump’s tariff announcement last week. Pic: AP
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The directives order:
• keeping some coal plants that were set for retirement open;
• directing the interior secretary to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands;
• requiring federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the US away from coal production, and;
• directing the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how coal energy can meet rising demand from artificial intelligence.
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