By arlington 
Man, this whole Al Hilal salary deep dive started kinda randomly. Was sipping my morning coffee, scrolling through football forums last Tuesday, when this super vague rumor about Benzema’s wages popped up. Got me curious, you know? Decided I wanted to know exactly who rakes in the big bucks over there. Figured it’d be straightforward. Boy, was I wrong.
The Hunt Begins
Jumped straight into Google, thinking some Saudi sports sites would just spill the beans. Typed in the obvious stuff like “Al Hilal player salaries 2024”. Got loads of fluff pieces, old articles from last season, or general guesses. Frustrating! Found a few “top 10 highest paid” lists, but they looked sketchy – no sources, numbers all over the place. Felt like chasing smoke.
Changed my strategy. Started hunting for specific player names + “Al Hilal salary” + “contract details”. Digging deeper into regional football news sites, even tried translating Arabic pages – Chrome’s translate tool got a workout! Stumbled upon some local reports discussing transfers and contract renewals, quoting officials sometimes. Slowly pieced it together like a puzzle.
Tripping Over the Hurdles
Man, this was messy. Biggest headaches?
- Paywalls Everywhere! Found what looked like the perfect article on a big Saudi paper’s site… only to hit a subscription wall. No way I was paying for it.
- Zero Official Releases Clubs don’t exactly publish payslips. Had to rely on leaks, agents bragging (indirectly), and journalists claiming “sources close to the club”.
- Crazy Currency Confusion Euros? Dollars? Saudi Riyals? Some reports used one, others another. Pulled out my calculator constantly to compare apples to apples. Annoying!
- Old News, Bad Sources Found so many pages repeating figures from 2022 or early 2023 contracts. New signings totally messed up those old lists.
Putting the Puzzle Together
Took me hours over two days, cross-referencing everything. Finally landed on a handful of sources that seemed reliable and recent enough. Made a simple spreadsheet:
- Player Name (duh!)
- Reported Annual Salary (converted to Euros cause it’s easier for me)
- Where I found the info (general site names/types, no links)
- Notes on how credible it felt
No huge surprises at the tippy-top, honestly. Neymar’s name floated near obscene figures, even though he’s been injured. Benzema’s deal looked monstrous too, as expected. The real shockers were further down:
- A couple of solid Saudi internationals making way less than I imagined compared to the foreign stars.
- One defender signed last summer apparently landing a shockingly good (or maybe just overpaid?) package.
- Figuring out Mitrovic’s wage compared to his Premier League days was interesting.
Felt kinda cool compiling it all myself. You get this weird sense of accomplishment just figuring out who gets paid what, even if it’s public-ish knowledge. Didn’t expect Neves to be quite that high up the list either!
At the end of it all? Seeing those numbers laid out is still kinda wild. Makes you realize the insane cash flowing through that league right now. Feels weirdly like you cracked some secret code, even though it’s not that secret. Honestly, it just makes me feel like I could maybe be a halfway decent football agent, or at least win an argument about transfer values!