Neom go big with $100m spend as they seek to rival giants of Saudi Pro League

Promoted club, who represent a city in the process of being built, have added several former Premier League stars to their squad

Alexandre Lacazette of Neom SC in action against AS Roma in pre-season. Getty Images

As construction budgets in Saudi Arabia go, the 100 or so million dollars Neom have spent building their football team is trifling.

Set against the cost of the city the team is set to represent, for example, it scarcely touches the sides. After all, the club is just one piece of the $500 billion mega project underway in the Kingdom’s far north west.

But the outlay the club have made this summer is still a statement of intent in football terms. They are entering Saudi Arabia’s big league for the first time, and they want to make their mark.

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For the best part of 60 years, the club had bobbed along in the lower reaches of the country’s competition structure.

Based in Tabuk, the main city of a region that is being entirely redrawn as part of Vision 2030, the club was then known as Al Suqoor.

It was taken over in 2023 – at the same time as the Public Investment Fund (PIF) were taking ownership of the giant clubs, Al Hilal, Al Nassr, Al Ittihad and Al Ahli Saudi – and renamed Neom.

Eventually, it is planned the region will have a population of nine million, with the team playing at a 46,000-capacity stadium fit for the 2034 World Cup.

That can wait, but for now, the residents of Tabuk at least have a top division club to watch for the first time.

Their home ground, the 12,000-capacity King Khalid Sport City Stadium, remains somewhat plain, but the squad they have assembled is looking anything but.

They were linked with big money moves for players of the calibre of Andre Onana and Granit Xhaka this summer.

In the end, the former has stayed at Manchester United while the latter opted to return to the Premier League from a fine spell in the Bundesliga with Bayer Leverkusen. The former Arsenal midfielder plumped for Sunderland in the north east of England rather than the north west of Saudi Arabia.

But Neom have attracted a number of players with Premier League pedigree. Abdoulaye Doucoure has arrived from Everton on a free, with Alexandre Lacazette, the former Arsenal striker, doing similar from Lyon.

Said Benrahma, formerly of Brentford and West Ham United, has also formalised his permanent signing, having played a key role in Neom’s promotion season as a loanee.

While each of those are 30-somethings, who might fit the profile of veterans looking for a last pay check, Neom have been able to bring in young talents, too.

Christophe Galtier, Neom's new French coach, has raided his home league for well regarded prospects like Nathan Zeze, a 20-year-old centre back from Nantes, and Saimon Boubare, a 19-year-old attacking midfielder from Monaco.

How it all merges together will be intriguing to see. Whether Neom can disrupt the established order straight away feels a stretch, but that is the ultimate goal.

They will face a stern test of their credentials straightaway. On their debut in the Saudi Pro League (SPL) they will play the champions of Asia, Al Ahli, on Thursday night.

The King Abdullah Sports City stadium might not be packed quite to its 62,000-capacity, but it could be close. The home fans are set to turn out in force to welcome home their champions.

Ahli have already added the first trophy of the season to the big one they won – the AFC Champions League Elite – in such spectacular fashion at the end of last season.

And yet their new status as Saudi Super Cup champions is already the subject of debate. Having finished fifth in the SPL last season, Ahli did not officially qualify for the four-team Super Cup, which was played in Hong Kong last week.

They were given an invitation to play when Hilal, who were SPL runners up, pulled out, citing the fact they had had a busy enough schedule, having played at the Club World Cup in the United States earlier in the summer.

Ahli took up the invite, then beat Al Qadsiah and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Nassr to take the title – only for Qadsiah to subsequently complain that they should have been granted a bye.

The process to resolve the issue, after Qadsiah made a formal protest, is still to be decided.

Much like Neom, Qadsiah are intent on disrupting the traditional big four, PIF-owned clubs. They have spent more on transfers than anyone else in the summer window, most notably on bringing in Mateo Retegui.

The Italy striker was the leading scorer in Serie A last season with Atalanta. In a summer in which Kingsley Coman, Joao Felix, Darwin Nunez and Theo Hernandez have all switched to the SPL, Retegui was the costliest recruit.

While Qadsiah and Neom are geared up to be the two sides who could cause most disruption this season, there are other sources of intrigue in the SPL.

Most notably, Al Kholood, based on the fact they recently became the first foreign-owned club in the SPL. They were bought by the Harburg Group, a United States-based investment group who also have a small stake in Spanish side Cadiz.

Their first decision was to appoint as coach Des Buckingham, a 40-year-old Englishman who in the past had two seasons with the City Football Group’s Indian side, Mumbai City.