Al Hilal Saudi Club

Now, last week it was announced that Crown Jewel had been switched from the open-air Riyadh Season Stadium, and there's now a bit of an update on this whole situation.

Now, despite Dave Meltzer saying that the event had moved to the Kingdom Arena, that is not the case, as the Kingdom Arena is the home stadium of the Al-Hilal football team, meaning it's kind of off-limits.

And so, Crown Jewel is taking place from the A&B Arena, an indoor venue in Riyadh that holds, I believe it's somewhere in the region of 8,000 people, might be a little bit more than that.

Now, Fightful Select notes that the move indoors was purely a security measure rather than due to poor ticket sales.

Declan Rice, Gabriel, William Saliba.

I saw that William Saliba was ranked lower than a bunch of defenders from, who was it? Al-Hilal or something like that.

What the? I don't know what this thing is.

Look, Harry Kane has had a great year and scored plenty of goals, but I've said it and I've said it multiple times.

...c'è ancora più stress a livello, a livello proprio, eh, fisico.

Perché? Perché molti dicono: "Il ritmo non è quello", ma ci sono delle squadre comunque che, mh, diciamo Al-Nassr, eh, Al-Hilal, Al-Ahli, ce ne sono tre o quattro squadre che potrebbero, eh, giocare benissimo nei campionati italiani e anche esteri Il problema qui sono le distanze, sono gli allenamenti che si fanno la sera, sono gli allenamenti che si finiscono tardi, non si riesce a dormire, mmh, prima de-di mezzanotte, l'1:00 un giocatore non riesce ad andare a letto, soprattutto d'estate fra virgolette, che qui comunque fa sempre caldo.

Adesso è cambiata un po' la cosa perché, eh, la temperatura sta cambiando e si allenano un po' prima al pomeriggio, ma altrimenti prima delle 8:00 non riesci ad allenarti la sera quando ci sono queste cose.

E quando si fanno le trasferte, sono trasferte lunghe oltretutto.

And see CAF Champions League 旁边 and, uh, group stages 旁边 Uber group A, yeah, Esperance Tunis, uh, 旁边, and Petro Luanda, uh, 旁边, and, uh, CS Ougadougou, uh, and, uh, AS Vita Club, uh, Rubine Kazan like AC, uh, young Africans, uh, and, uh, AFI, MC Algiers, uh, Club Africain and so HLM groups, you know, RS Berkane, uh, Simba SC, uh, Orlando Pirates now face, uh, Colombo, uh, Sportif also HLM.

Group D, no, uh, Pyramids FC and then Al-Hilal of Omdurman.

There's a Sudan team, no, no.

Now face Royal SC 旁边 and, uh, Mas Diface and so, uh, uh, uh, but where, uh, CAF, uh, Champions League, uh, group stages, no, 旁边.

Estagval are second, six points plus four goal difference.

Al Hilal and Sharab Al Ahly are next.

Al Ahly, Saudi and Al Qadzia are next with four points.

Nefti Al Nasser with three points each.

A total that is slightly down from 2025's $945 million, even though most of the nine players returning from that list are making more than they did a year ago.

The primary culprit is the one absence from last year's group, Karim Benzema, who made an estimated $104 million last year but, after transferring mid-season within the Saudi Pro League from Al-Ithihad to Al-Hilal, agreed to terminate his contract in August and is currently a free agent.

Stepping into his place among the top 10 this year is Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane, who qualifies for the ranking for the first time since 2023 with an estimated $42 million.

Benzema's departure means that the list now has only two players remaining from the Saudi Pro League, Ronaldo and his Al Nasser teammate Sadio Mane, who is No. 7 this year with an estimated $54 million as he enters the final year of his contract.

He was a stud at the 2026 World Cup.

I'm sure he's doing great things with, you know, Al-Hilal.

Honestly, I don't watch him.

I don't care because every time I do watch Hussein Bounou, be it a penalty shootout, be it a key moment against Tanzania in an AFCON knockout game, He steps up every single time.

He made me the last bad performance from Buna with Morocco.

Please, people.

Look, I don't watch Al-Hilal.

I cannot say anything about that.

Kane coming back to Munich with the Ballon d'Or and Kane extending.

And even though there was interest in the summer from both Barcelona and Al-Hilal, Kane had made it clear that he wasn't going anywhere.

And you look at his form and how settled he is, and you can certainly see why he wants to extend for another three years.

Bruno Fernandes' contractual situation is the complete opposite.

This is the massive figure in Saudi football.

In Saudi Arabia, you're a fan of either Al Ahly or Al Hilal or Etihad or Al Nassab, big four.

And Al Ahly has... been relegated, has gone down to the second division.

So Jaisa took over when the club was coming back.

He benefited from that.

The pressure was on the other clubs to deliver and win trophies and capitalize on the amount of money that was spent, he didn't even get a massive figure.

So in that season, for example, Al Nasser had Cristiano Ronaldo, Al Hilal had signed Neymar, Al Etihad had Karim Benzema.

He had none of this.