AUSTRALIA: The recent surge in investment in the Saudi Pro League has, on the whole, been a positive thing for Asian football, with more eyeballs and interest in not only one of Asia’s flagship domestic leagues, but also in their showpiece continental tournaments.
Having the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Riyad Mahrez grace the fields of Asia’s premier club competition certainly gives it more international credibility and visibility.
Wherever Ronaldo goes with Al-Nassr, the crowds follow. There were unbelievable scenes in Iran last year when the Riyadh giants traveled to play Persepolis, while just this week more than 37,000 filled the cavernous Al-Bayt Stadium in Qatar to watch Al-Nassr edge local side Al-Gharafa.
Before the Ronaldo show rolled into town, Al-Gharafa had averaged a little over 4,000 spectators to their three other games this season.
Last season, meanwhile, Indian champions Mumbai City had to move their game with Al-Hilal to a bigger stadium, such was the rush for tickets for the arrival of Neymar; and although his ACL injury a few weeks prior quelled that excitement, more than 30,000 turned up.
The Saudi clubs are now box office wherever they go, and add a level of prestige to the competition that it has long needed.
The AFC Champions League has always maintained a level of prestige among Saudi clubs and fans, so it is no surprise that they have contested the final over the two decades since its initial reformatting in 2002.
Al-Ittihad won back-to-back titles in 2004 and 2005, while finishing as runners-up in 2009. Their Jeddah rivals Al-Ahli also fell one win short in 2012, losing the final in South Korea to Ulsan Hyundai, while Al-Hilal made it a hat-trick of defeats when they suffered a shock loss to Australia’s Western Sydney Wanderers in 2014.
Since then, the giants from Riyadh have made it their mission to dominate the continental scene, with a further four appearances in the final for a record of two wins and two losses while appearing in three of the last five finals.
All of that is to say Saudi clubs have a long and proud history in the AFC Champions League — which has now been rebranded as the AFC Champions League Elite — long before the record investment into the league over the past 18 months.
But what many feared, particularly on the eastern side of the continent, was that the scale of the investment would make the AFC Champions League Elite a plaything for Saudi clubs, with the other 21 clubs unable to compete or match the levels of investment and the quality of players at their disposal.
Al-Ain did a good job of upsetting the apple cart last year with wins over Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal in the quarterfinal and semifinal respectively, on their march to claiming a second continental title.
That may ultimately prove to be the exception rather than the norm, however.
A look at this year’s AFC Champions League Elite, the first tournament being staged with the new format of just 24 teams and an eight-game league stage format — similar to that of the UEFA Champions League — suggests that maybe the dam is about to burst when it comes to the dominance of Saudi clubs.
With three games still to play in the league stage, all three Saudi clubs — Al Hilal, Al Ahli and Al Nassr — are safely through to the round of 16.
Their combined record stands at 15 games played, 13 games won, two games drawn and zero losses. They have scored 41 goals and conceded just 13.
The group stage is not yet completed and already it is hard to look past one of the trio for the title, especially when you consider they will have the considerable home ground advantage in the knockout stages after the controversial decision by the AFC to stage the knockout rounds (from the quarterfinals onward) in a central location, with Saudi Arabia awarded the hosting rights for the foreseeable future.
One has to factor in the randomness of the knockout stage draws that could see Saudi clubs drawn together, and therefore taking each other out before getting to the pointy end. But with the AFC also doing away with the east-west split from the quarterfinals onward, there is also the possibility of all three making the semifinals, or even an all-Saudi final.
For Scott McIntyre, who has been reporting on Asian football for more than two decades, the writing is already on the wall for clubs in the east.
“I don’t think anyone from the east can challenge any of the Saudi clubs,” the Japan-based McIntyre recently said on “The Asian Game Podcast,” adding: “The game has shifted so far to the west that as long as things stay as they’re now and the spending is unrestricted in the west, and it’s not in the east, unless there’s a change in format I just can’t see anyone from the east challenging.
“For me (the tide) has shifted remarkably, and you just can’t compete with the financial powers that the west has. That’s the reality we’re living in.”
Based on the first five rounds this season, the era of Saudi domination appears to be here — and here to stay.
