Saudi Arabia breaks the market again! The huge sum spent by the Saudis during the summer

Saudi Arabia has once again 'revolutionised' the transfer market. Although they were not as 'agitators' as last summer, when they spent almost 1,000 million euros, the fact that the Middle Eastern league has increased the quota of foreign players from eight to 10 per team has helped the clubs to make numerous moves in the already finished summer window, reaching a figure close to almost 500 million invested.

Míchel's Al-Qadsiah, a recently promoted club, was one of the main protagonists, spending 80 million on various reinforcements. The main one, Nacho Fernández, who arrived after winning the Champions League and the League as captain of Real Madrid. After the Spaniard, Casteels (Wolfsburg), Nandez (Cagliari), Ezequiel Fernandez (Boca Juniors), Aubameyang (OM), Iker Almena (Girona) and Gaston Alvarez (Getafe) joined a team that promises to give battle and compete for a place in international competitions.

Although they did not get a big-name signing like Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Benzema or Kanté, the Saudis continued to accumulate 'cracks' in their league. The most expensive transfer was that of Moussa Diaby for Al-Ittihad (60 million from Aston Villa), although also notable were the landings of Ivan Toney to Al-Ahli (40 million from Brentford) and Joao Cancelo to Al-Hilal (25 million from City).

Karim Benzema's team 'hogged' the headlines last Monday, September 2, the last day of the transfer market. After Galeno's departure to Porto, they closed the arrivals of Danilo Pereira (PSG) and Steven Bergwijn (Ajax) for a total of 26 million. For its part, Neymar Jr.'s team, who is expected to be registered in the next few hours after his serious injury, was reinforced with Marcos Leonardo, who arrived from Benfica for 40 million, while Cristiano's Al-Nassr shored up its defense with the signing of Mohamed Simakan for 43 million, in addition to Angelo, for whom they paid 23 million to Chelsea.

The big flops of the summer

However, the Saudis also suffered major rejections in the last summer window. Álvaro Morata and Paulo Dybala were close to joining Nacho Fernández at Al-Qadsiah, but both players rejected the possibility despite the fact that, especially the Argentine, they were very close to closing the deal. For his part, Victor Osimehn had everything done to join Al-Ahli, but negotiations with Napoli broke down at the last minute and his deal ended up falling through.