“No disrespect to Cristiano Ronaldo” - Ex-Liverpool striker offers opinion on Ronaldo breaking Saudi Pro League record
Former Liverpool player Stan Collymore gave his opinion on the future of the Saudi Pro-League and Cristiano Ronaldo's record goalscoring tally for Al-Nassr in a column of CaughtOffside.
The Portuguese No. 7 broke yet another record by becoming the player with the most goals in a single season of the Saudi Pro League in history. He scored 35 goals for Al Nassr this season, breaking the record of the current Al-Ittihad forward Abderrazak Hamdallah, who netted 34 in 2018-19.
Stan Collymore paid his respects to Cristiano Ronaldo. However, he also opined that Saudi Pro League will never reach the level of the top European domestic leagues and no player will want to go to Saudi Arabia at their peak.
"No disrespect to Cristiano Ronaldo, whose 35 goals is a remarkable achievement even if he was doing that at his age in Sunday league football, but I can’t cannot see a time where European footballers head to Saudi Arabia to give the best years of their life," the former Liverpool striker opined.
After the record-breaking match, Cristiano Ronaldo took to Instagram and posted about his achievement. In a typical Cristiano Ronaldo fashion, he wrote:
“I don’t follow the records, the records follow me.”
Cristiano Ronaldo has ended yet another statistically surcharged season for Al-Nassr, scoring 35 goals and creating 11 more for the Saudi side in the league. Although Al-Nassr finished a distant second in the league table with 14 points behind Al Hilal, they will have the chance to take revenge against Neymar's side in today's (May 31) King's Cup final clash.
This will be the last chance for the Knights of Najd to make amends for an otherwise underwhelming league season and win a trophy before the new season begins.
Stan Collymore thinks players who go to Cristiano Ronaldo's Saudi League are seen as 'irrelevant'
In the CaughtOffside column, former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore was very critical about the Saudi Pro League. The 53-year-old opined that the Saudi Pro League will not be able to enter the top 5 leagues in the world.
“I’m 50 and I can’t ever see in my lifetime that the Saudi Pro League will be thought of as a top five global league and the reasons are really quite simple. England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany… 100 plus year-old leagues, legacy leagues that really mean something,” Collymore said.
He also commented that sponsors will never choose the Saudi Pro League over the EPL, La Liga, Serie A, or other top European leagues. The Englishman predicted that Saudi will host many football tournaments in the future. Still, it will never be able to match the prestige of some of the iconic grounds in the world like Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu.
“Kylian Mbappe was effectively offered billions to go and he didn’t choose it because he knew that he could get paid very handsomely in Europe and be relevant," argued Collymore, referring to Kylian Mbappe's famous refusal of a record-breaking fee to play in the Saudi Pro League.
The 53-year-old finally ended his piece by talking about how players who go to play in the Saudi Pro League are perceived outside Europe.
“When you go to Saudi you’re seen as two things; a mercenary and irrelevant,” commented the Englishman.