Gary Lineker insists Saudi Pro League will NOT rival English football until a player ‘like Kylian Mbappé’ agrees to leave
- Gary Lineker is not worried about a looming threat from the Saudi Pro League
- Saudi Arabia’s top flight is trying to attract top European stars to the country
- But Lineker admitted the threat to the Premier League is currently minimal
Gary Lineker is not concerned that Saudi Arabia will match the Premier League, despite calls from the Middle East to bring household names to the Kingdom.
The Saudi Pro League has ramped up their recruitment efforts since Cristiano Ronaldo cut ties with Manchester United to become their most talked-about name in December last year.
Since then, Saudi Arabia’s biggest clubs have dug deeper into their hoard of riches with a host of Premier League talents fleeing the English top flight for the huge wages on offer.
Jordan Henderson gave up the Liverpool captaincy to secure a £700-000 a week deal to join Steven Gerrard at Al-Ettifaq, Ruben Neves left Wolves, while N’Golo Kante and Edouard Mendy left some of the names were who swapped Stamford Bridge for life in the desert.
While club chiefs in the form of Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp warn of the growing appeal from Saudi Arabia, Lineker believes any immediate threat to the Premier League is minimal.
Cristiano Ronaldo (right) became the first high-profile name to move to Saudi Arabia, but Kylian Mbappé (left) recently refused to hold talks about moving to the country
Gary Lineker believes Saudi Pro League threat is minimal until they sign current star like Mbappé (pictured)
While Ronaldo and current Ballon d’Or holder Karim Benzema now score their trade goals in Saudi Arabia, the league has failed to sign a world-class player in the prime of their careers.
They tried to do this by offering Paris Saint-Germain’s hero turned villain, Kylian Mbappé, an outrageous deal worth more than £600 million a year, but the French superstar refused to even hold talks about a move.
And until they are unable to do so, Lineker is largely unconcerned about the threat posed by Saudi Arabia’s football ambitions, as he explained in his writing in his column for the sun.
The 62-year-old Englishman said: “But until they sign Kylian Mbappé or another real world star in his prime, the big European clubs will remain relaxed about it.
“At the moment it’s just the latest league where older players die their football death – like Karim Benzema going to Al-Ittihad – for one last earner.
Lineker insisted that the Saudi Pro League, like the MLS’s ability to sign Lionel Messi (right), is a place for players at the end of their careers
Lineker is largely unconcerned about the threat posed by Saudi Arabia’s football ambitions
“It’s the same with Major League Soccer in America, it was the same with China for a while, and I did it myself in Japan at the end of my playing career.”
Lineker is no stranger to trading England for opportunities elsewhere, as he did when he left Everton to move to Barcelona in 1986, but Camp Nou’s appeal has always been about more than money, unlike Saudi Arabia. Arabia.
The iconic presenter’s admission that the Middle East is the same case as America’s rise to become a late-career haven for stars is bolstered by Lionel Messi’s decision to leave Europe for Miami.
There is belief in the Premier League that Saudi Arabia is able to continue their splash-cash approach over the next decade, but Lineker says the offer from the Middle East should not spark irrational fear among European ranks.