So unprecedented was the Saudi Pro League's summer transfer window last year that the main talking point ahead of the 2024/25 season is about the business not being done.
Around this time 12 months ago, Saudi clubs spent a collective $1 billion on recruiting many of the world's best and most famous players, putting into motion an ambitious plan to transform the SPL into one of the world's leading domestic leagues.
This summer has been comparatively dormant. On the eve of the new season, the total spend on new players has been 20 per cent of what it was last year, although that figure would be dramatically different had Al Ahli pulled off their audacious bid for Real Madrid's Brazilian star Vinicius Junior.
There are still almost two weeks for clubs to conduct business, and England striker Ivan Toney could be the next big name through the door, but for now the focus turns to the football.
Defending champions Al Hilal have yet to strengthen their squad but were so dominant last season that they may feel they don't need to. The Riyadh giants recruited exceptionally well last summer, with their expensive imports, including winger Malcom, midfielders Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Ruben Neves, and goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, all adapting quickly to football in Saudi.
Spearheaded by the goals of former Fulham and Newcastle United striker Aleksandar Mitrovic, Hilal charged their way to the SPL title, going unbeaten and finishing 14 points clear of nearest challengers Nassr while also securing the double by beating Cristiano Ronaldo and Co in the King's Cup final.
Ominously for their rivals, Hilal played all but three league games without their most talented player, and the SPL's record signing, Neymar. The Brazilian forward tore his cruciate ligament last October but is expected to return to action imminently.
That does not bode well for Ronaldo and Al Nassr, who were on the receiving end of a beating from Hilal in the Saudi Super Cup final last weekend as their Riyadh rivals provided an immediate statement of their intent.
The Portuguese superstar was the catalyst for Saudi Arabia's football revolution when he joined Nassr in January 2023, yet for all his influence in helping to transform the league, he is yet to get his hands on any trophies. Ronaldo remains a world-class finisher, his 35 goals setting a new league record last season, but he could only fire Nassr to a runner-up finish.
Nassr's sole summer signing at present has been Brazilian goalkeeper Bento, who got off to a rocky start in conceding four against Hilal, the last of which was directly his fault.
Similar to their fellow 'Big Four' rivals, Al Ahli made several eye-catching signings last summer, but the likes of Riyadh Mahrez, Roberto Firmino, Franck Kessie, and Allan Saint-Maximin could only take the Jeddah giants to a third-placed finish, 17 points adrift of Nassr.
Their only signing so far has been 20-year-old Brazilian midfielder Alexsander, but if their pursuit of proven goalscorer Toney ends successfully, that would change their outlook instantly.
The most eye-catching business of the 'Big Four' has been conducted by Al Ittihad as they attempt to bounce back from a thoroughly disappointing title defence that ended in fifth place.
The Jeddah club boosted their squad with the arrival of winger Moussa Diaby from Aston Villa and midfielder Houssem Aouar from Roma, but will also be looking to star forward Karim Benzema for a more productive season after the former Real Madrid marksman scored just nine league goals in his debut campaign.
While the giants of Saudi football have been relatively quiet this summer, the busiest club has been promoted Al Qadsiah. The Saudi Aramco-owned side have signed former Real Madrid captain Nacho, ex-Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, talented midfielder Ezequiel Fernandez, and defender Gaston Alvarez in a bid to challenge the SPL's established elite.
The complexion of each squad could still change, but it will take something special to stop Al Hilal from successfully defending their title, once again leaving Ronaldo frustrated in his bid to win league trophies in every country in which he's played.
First round of fixtures
Thursday
Al Taawoun v Al Fayha (8.10pm kick-off UAE)
A Nassr v Al Raed (10pm)
Al Wehda v Al Riyadh (10pm)
Friday
Damac v Al Khaleej (8.10pm)
Al Ahli v Al Orubah (10pm)
Al Qadsiah v Al Fateh (10pm)
Saturday
Al Kholood v Al Ittihad (8.10pm)
Al Okhdood v Al Hilal (10pm)
Al Shabab v Al Ettifaq (10pm)
'My Son'
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
(All games 4-3pm kick UAE time) Bayern Munich v Augsburg, Borussia Dortmund v Bayer Leverkusen, Hoffenheim v Hertha Berlin, Wolfsburg v Mainz , Eintracht Frankfurt v Freiburg, Union Berlin v RB Leipzig, Cologne v Schalke , Werder Bremen v Borussia Monchengladbach, Stuttgart v Arminia Bielefeld
Company%20profile
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The Two Popes
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce
Four out of five stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Results
6.30pm Madjani Stakes Rated Conditions (PA) I Dh160,000 I 1,900m I Winner: Mawahib, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Eric Lemartinel (trainer)
7.05pm Maiden Dh150,000 I 1,400m I Winner One Season, Antonio Fresu, Satish Seemar
7.40pm: Maiden Dh150,000 I 2,000m I Winner Street Of Dreams, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
8.15pm Dubai Creek Listed I Dh250,000 I 1,600m I Winner Heavy Metal, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer
8.50pm The Entisar Listed I Dh250,000 I 2,000m I Winner Etijaah, Dane O’Neill, Doug Watson
9.25pm The Garhoud Listed I Dh250,000 I 1,200m I Winner Muarrab, Dane O’Neill, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
10pm Handicap I Dh160,000 I 1,600m I Winner Sea Skimmer, Patrick Cosgrave, Helal Al Alawi
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Norway v Spain, Saturday, 10.45pm, UAE
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
One-off T20 International: UAE v Australia
When: Monday, October 22, 2pm start
Where: Abu Dhabi Cricket, Oval 1
Tickets: Admission is free
Australia squad: Aaron Finch (captain), Mitch Marsh, Alex Carey, Ashton Agar, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, Darcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa, Peter Siddle
Read more about the coronavirus
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
'How To Build A Boat'
Jonathan Gornall, Simon & Schuster
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Jawan
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EAtlee%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Shah%20Rukh%20Khan%2C%20Nayanthara%2C%20Vijay%20Sethupathi%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E4%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The Buckingham Murders
Starring: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ash Tandon, Prabhleen Sandhu
Director: Hansal Mehta
Rating: 4 / 5
Itcan profile
Founders: Mansour Althani and Abdullah Althani
Based: Business Bay, with offices in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and India
Sector: Technology, digital marketing and e-commerce
Size: 70 employees
Revenue: On track to make Dh100 million in revenue this year since its 2015 launch
Funding: Self-funded to date
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Company%C2%A0profile
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Abu Dhabi traffic facts
Drivers in Abu Dhabi spend 10 per cent longer in congested conditions than they would on a free-flowing road
The highest volume of traffic on the roads is found between 7am and 8am on a Sunday.
Travelling before 7am on a Sunday could save up to four hours per year on a 30-minute commute.
The day was the least congestion in Abu Dhabi in 2019 was Tuesday, August 13.
The highest levels of traffic were found on Sunday, November 10.
Drivers in Abu Dhabi lost 41 hours spent in traffic jams in rush hour during 2019
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
