Everyone who watches the state of Saudi football in the current period is certain that it is not at its best. Rather, it is at its weakest. And that is not just an impression or a fleeting view, as proven by the tournaments and competitions that the national team participates in, not only in the last World Cup, but in the Gulf Cups, Asian Cup tournaments, and qualifiers for the Asian Cup and World Cup finals. In all these events, the national team suffered greatly, and Saudi sports fans were pained watching the team's pitiful and miserable state, and watching newly formed Gulf, Arab, and Asian teams outperform it, while it used to beat them with record results.

If Japan's national team is today first in Asia, and ranked 18th in the world, is it acceptable that the Saudi national team, which was previously first in Asia, is now ranked 60th in the world!? Undoubtedly, this situation reflects a crisis that Saudi football is experiencing, not only at the level of the first team, but even at the level of the quality of players and elements. The quality of Saudi players has greatly declined. The national team coach has become forced to select players of lower quality than required to fill positions.

This is what prompted Saudi national team coach Mancini to make his famous statement that the Saudi player does not know how to play football! After some national team players have lost basic football skills that they were supposed to learn from the youth stages, such as proper receiving and passing, moving without the ball, full field vision, the skill of asking for the ball, the skill of anticipating the ball's direction for defender and attacker, the skill of dispossessing the opponent, toughness and physical strength, and others.

And if it continues as it is, the suffering of Saudi football will increase, as it is now in need of urgent interventions to be implemented before it deteriorates and reaches a state where it is difficult to return to the right path.

Our national team in the next two months will participate in the Gulf Cup organized by the Kingdom, and after five months it will play in the Asian Cup finals also in the Kingdom. These two participations require urgent solutions for the Green. Saudi fans look forward to winning the Gulf Cup and the Asian Cup. That is the least of its dreams.

Perhaps the upcoming Gulf Cup or the Asian Cup will not help in implementing radical solutions that start from the youth and academies stage. Time is very critical, and what is required is to introduce elements from the youth and under-21 teams into the first team, especially in positions suffering from a decline in player quality, such as the attack line. It is also required from the Football Association with its new president to pay attention to implementing academies in clubs and obliging them to strict standards, so that their outputs are supportive and achieve the desired goals. This is because many of the current club academies are commercial academies that open their doors to whoever pays the fees only, regardless of the player's basics and required standards, such as height, weight, vision, or subjecting them to tests in abilities, skills, intelligence, and reaction speed.

Working on developing club academies and youth stages in clubs must be accompanied by working on developing current players (as much as possible) and preparing the atmosphere for them to bring out the best in them.

We must have plans with annual goals, plans for three years, and plans for four years. Their results will appear in the next World Cup 2030 in Spain, Morocco, and Portugal, and plans for eight years whose results will appear in the 2034 World Cup hosted by the Kingdom.

The biggest mistake of Al-Meshal's federation was that it did not provide any plans to develop Saudi football with goals linked to a specific time frame. Because it was avoiding accountability.

Saudi economic reports

Angles

* The first benefit of the new (foreign) sports management at Al-Hilal was the speed in resolving the situation of player Marcos Leonardo and finding a professional opportunity for him at Dutch Ajax for 25 million euros that entered Al-Hilal's treasury. This was done within just one week. Previously, Al-Hilal struggled with the exit of some foreign players, some leaving for free, and some resorting to escape like Lodi! Due to the lack of solutions or possible means in the hands of the local sports director.

* One of the most important reasons for the failure of the resigned head of the Football Association, Yasser Al-Meshal, is his continued work with the same old methodologies and methods that have become outdated. At the forefront is allowing failed elements from the old guard to be present in committees, as well as accepting elements with mediocre competence to work in various parts of the federation. In addition to resorting to consensus decisions, which ensure that neither this party nor that gets angry, regardless of the system and regulations.

* The first step that the next head of the federation's board should take is to develop the organizational structure of the federation, and attract high competencies to work in the federation's departments and committees, even if they are all foreign.

* One of the most important reasons for the failure of foreign expertise in the federation's committees, such as refereeing, is that they enlist previously failed refereeing elements as members of the committee with the foreign head. They then bring him down because the one who lacks something cannot give it.

* Before assuming the presidency of the Football Association, Yasser Al-Meshal was an ideal sports figure and a model of success, but he failed to lead the federation. There may be many invisible factors behind his failure that he knows. Therefore, the next president must understand the reasons and factors of Al-Meshal's failure to avoid them and so as not to be another Al-Meshal.

* The International Football Federation (FIFA) made several amendments to the football law and the VAR protocol and applied them in the current World Cup matches. Unfortunately, some sports journalists and some fans did not understand those amendments! Rather, some of them started comparing new cases where the amendments were applied with old cases that occurred in the local league two or three seasons ago. And they accuse bias towards the previous application.

* Success in clubs is never achieved through screaming, noise, and claiming victimhood. All clubs live in the same organizational environment, and whoever is unable to work like others should leave the field for others. The time of deception and false claims that this club has favor or special treatment to cover up shortcomings and failure is over.