It is expected that all players will be presented with Rolls-Royce vehicles to congratulate the Saudi Arabian players who defeated Argentina 2-1 in the first group match of the 2022 Qatar World Cup finals.
On the 22nd, when Saudi Arabia, ranked 51st in the FIFA rankings, defeated Argentina, ranked third, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud promised sufficient compensation, including a gift of one Rolls-Royce car per player, reported the Beijing Youth Daily, a Chinese media, on the 25th. .
Crown Prince bin Salman, who is known as the world’s richest person with a personal asset of about 2,500 trillion won, is known as Saudi’s most influential person. He recently said, “To celebrate the greatest victory in World Cup history, we will present top-of-the-line vehicles to all national team players, including starters, substitutes, and players who have not played.”
The media estimated that the price of expensive luxury vehicles to be presented by Crown Prince Bin Salman would reach 450,000 dollars (about 600 million won) per car, and that a total of 11.7 million dollars (about 15.5 billion won) would be provided to the 26 national team. It is not known whether this compensation includes the manager and coaches, but the media predicted that there will be more compensation than the players.
In addition, if Saudi Arabia, which is currently in Group C of the final round, gains an advantage in games such as Poland and Mexico and advances to the round of 16, it is highly likely that a larger prize money will be awarded to them.
In fact, during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, King Abdullah offered an official incentive prize of 15.62 million dollars (approximately 20.7 billion won) for Saudi Arabia to advance to the quarterfinals. Compared to the prize money of the final winning team in Germany at the time, which was 10.41 million dollars, the prize money was higher.
When the Saudi national team advanced to the round of 16 at the time of the 1994 World Cup in the United States, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia at the time showed an exceptional incentive to pay all players, such as a Mercedes Benz sedan and $100,000.
Meanwhile, Crown Prince bin Salman drew attention by appearing before the opening match of the World Cup in Qatar on the 21st. He watched the game from the seat next to the FIFA president and showed the presence of the Middle East’s best player in the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East.
Jang Ji-min, Hankyung.com guest reporter [email protected]