On August 11, Saudi Arabia’s biggest football competition, the Saudi Pro League, will kick off for the 2023-24 season. Last season’s tournament did not exactly set pulses racing. Just 9300 fans attended games on average. For three of the past five seasons, the top scorer has been Abderrazak Hamdallah, a Moroccan who has not played for any of the world’s top clubs.

But this season may be different. Hamdallah’s team, Al Ittihad, has just signed Karim Benzema, winner of the 2022 Ballon d’Or award for best player in the world, from Real Madrid, and N’Golo Kante, a star midfielder from Chelsea. Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time winner of the Ballon d’Or, moved to Al Nassr, another Saudi club, in January from Manchester United. Former Liverpool winger, Sadio Mané, joined him there, while Liverpool’s captain, Jordan Henderson, signed for Al Ettifaq.

The Economist