UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin sees nothing wrong with Saudi Arabian clubs' move to buy players from Europe, at least on the side of European leagues.
Instead, he sees this as a wrong investment by the rich country as it only buys players at the end of their careers instead of developing youth through local academies.
Ceferin made the comment during an appearance on the Dutch broadcast show NOS. He was asked if the transfer of some big names threatens European football, and he answered with a certain "No."
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For him, what Saudi is doing is wrong, and the country might experience what happened to China, which to this day, has yet to produce a top-class player.
"The system of buying the players that almost ended their career is not the system that develops football," European football's top official explained.
"It was a similar mistake in China when they all brought players who are at the end of their career."
UEFA Looking to Change Salary and Transfer Cap
While money attracts most players to Saudi, Ceferin said some clubs could not be richer than others.
To answer that, he revealed the organization plans to impose an overall cap for teams that qualify for European competition. This will affect their budget for salaries and transfer market movements.
"Because we don't want that two or three clubs who have unlimited resources come to a budget of €5 billion or €10bn," he said. "Then our competition is not interesting anymore."
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