Saudi Pro League · Transfers

Saudi Pro League spending: €497m this summer, and Al-Hilal paid €206m of it

Saudi Pro League clubs paid €497.1m in transfer fees in summer 2026, €397.6m net. Al-Hilal paid €205.9m. Club by club, and what the new 75% cap means.

Footy Cap desk · 27 October 2026

Saudi Pro League clubs have spent €497.1m on transfer fees in the 2026/27 season, all of it in the summer window that closed on 6 September, by our sum of Transfermarkt's club figures. Take off €99.5m of sales and net spending is €397.6m (Transfermarkt; Ajel).

Al-Hilal paid €205.9m of that, 41% of the league total. Three clubs, Al-Hilal, Al-Qadsiah and Al-Ahli, account for 77%.

One club's window

Transfermarkt's table has Al-Hilal paying €205.87m for 19 arrivals and taking €20.84m back from sales (Transfermarkt). The biggest deals were Gabriel Martinelli from Arsenal for a reported $81.3m and Ollie Watkins for $67.8m, according to the Asharq Bloomberg summer report (Arab News).

That window alone is more than Al-Hilal's whole 2025/26 season, when Transfermarkt had it paying €172.07m (Transfermarkt). At our desk rate it is about $240m, roughly 71% of the club's last reported revenue of SAR 1.27bn, or $338.7m (Argaam).

It came in the same summer the club changed hands. Kingdom Holding completed its purchase of 70% of Al Hilal Club Company from the Public Investment Fund (PIF) on 1 September, paying SAR 840m, which values the club's whole equity at SAR 1.2bn. PIF keeps 30% (Kingdom Holding filing; Enterprise).

Everyone else slowed down

Second-placed Al-Qadsiah, owned by Saudi Aramco, paid €90.45m, much of it for Tijjani Reijnders, reported at $70.8m (Transfermarkt; Arab News). Al-Ahli paid €84.26m (Transfermarkt).

Elsewhere, spending fell hard. Al-Ittihad paid €33.0m against €30.0m of sales, a net €3.0m, after paying €122.56m across 2025/26. Al-Nassr paid €22.0m, down from €110.47m. NEOM, a €114.05m spender last season, paid €925k (Transfermarkt 2026/27; 2025/26). Al-Nassr made one arrival all window by Asharq Al-Awsat's count, and several media reports put that down to financial restrictions (Ajel).

FIFA's count of international deals points the same way: $407m spent by Saudi clubs this summer, down 26.3% on summer 2025's $552m and well below the $875m of 2023 (Arab News). FIFA's figure was taken four days before the window shut and excludes deals between Saudi clubs, so it does not match Transfermarkt's.

The first window under a spending cap

This is the first season the league's 75% rule bites. Its Financial Control Committee limits first-team spending, including player and coach contracts, to 75% of a club's revenue for 2026/27 (Arab News). The ceiling was 80% in the transition year and drops to 70% next season, and breaches can bring fines, registration bans and points deductions (Al Eqtisadiah).

The committee is waiting on clubs' financial reports in November before it audits compliance (Arab News). No club's ratio has been published, so neither has anyone's headroom. That is why Footy Cap's Saudi club pages leave available spend blank.

Al-Hilal's wider picture

The revenue figure flatters a little. Of the SAR 1.27bn, SAR 506m came from sponsorship and SAR 212m from donations, and the club made a SAR 37.8m profit in 2024/25 (Argaam). Capology's estimate of Al-Hilal's player pay is £279.4m, second in world football behind Al-Nassr's £314.2m (Capology via NewsX). Converted at our desk rates, that estimate is 112% of the revenue figure. It is an estimate for a different period, not the accounts, but it is why our health grade is an F (28.0).

Net debt is not published. Al-Hilal's net transfer spend across 2023/24 to 2025/26 was €623.4m, before this summer's €185.0m (Transfermarkt). Al-Nassr is the only other Saudi club we can grade, also an F (8.9), on SAR 556m of revenue excluding government grants (Arriyadiyah).

The full Saudi table, with every club's spending and the gaps we have not been able to fill, is on our Saudi Pro League page. For how a revenue-based cap works in England, see our squad cost ratio explainer.

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