Carlos Corberan response to major football controversy disappointing as West Brom boss speaks out
West Brom manager Carlos Corberan has defended the Saudi Pro League as he appeared to suggest the large sums of money being splashed out this window can only be a good thing for football.
The likes of Karim Benzema, Neymar, N’Golo Kante, Aymeric Laporte, Roberto Firmino and Riyad Mahrez have joined Cristiano Ronaldo in making the move to Saudi Arabia this summer.
Each have been recruited on mammoth contracts, while there is even talk of Liverpool superstar Mohamed Salah being a £215million target for Al-Ittihad [The Mirror].
However, when giving his thoughts on the topic, Corberan did not join the growing list of those inside the game to criticise the Saudi Pro League’s approach – the opposite, in fact.
“Everyone is talking like Saudi is doing something negative for football – no,” he is quoted as saying by the Birmingham Live [7 September]. “They are putting the money in, this is what they’re doing.
“England, in the Premier League, is a competition which is putting in the money. Normally, the best players, when someone can pay for the best players they can achieve the best in the world.”
While Corberan is right with regards to the Saudi Pro League’s approach not being too dissimilar to that of the Premier League, a competition that has regularly seen teams pay over the odds for the world’s best talent, the Spaniard has missed the wider point with his comments.
Al Hilal spending £77m to sign Neymar from Paris Saint-Germain, say, is not the problem as such.
The outrage is more to do with where the money is coming from, and the means behind signing well-known figures the world over – to help cover up other monstrosities away from the sporting world.
Spending big on the games’ biggest names is one thing; using state-funded money as a means of ‘sportswashing’ another.
In other West Brom news, Adrian Goldberg has claimed just one Albion player was not available to purchase in the summer transfer window.