These Ligue 1 stars have signed… in a ghost city 👻

A titanic challenge.

This can be a title you in all probability by no means heard of earlier than this summer season switch window. But, NEOM SC has made a powerful entrance into the French soccer panorama by recruiting the likes of Alexandre Lacazette, Marcin Bulka, Saïd Benrahma, and Christophe Galtier.

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In the event you did not know this membership, it is in all probability as a result of it is hooked up to a metropolis that does not exist… but.

NEOM SC is the group of the utopian challenge of the Saudi authorities referred to as “The Line”. This vertical metropolis in the course of the desert is meant to be prolonged in a straight line over 170 kilometers lengthy, 200 meters broad, and 500 meters excessive.

Confronted with the magnitude of the challenge, the scale of this metropolis would have been revised downward to solely 2.4 kilometers. This video from three years in the past reveals what the Saudi authorities promised.

However how can a membership from a metropolis that does not exist but already play within the Saudi first division? Effectively, earlier than being NEOM SC, the membership was referred to as Al-Suqoor and was based in 1965.

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In 2023, the Saudi public funding fund purchased the membership, which was stagnating within the third division, to rename it and permit it to climb the ranks till it reached the Saudi Professional League this 12 months.

If town and its future suspended stadium are presupposed to host matches of the 2034 World Cup, the present dwelling of NEOM SC is situated within the suburbs of Tabuk, 150 kilometers from the place The Line can be constructed.

Within the meantime, the Saudi membership is making an attempt to construct a strong squad to rival the highest groups in its championship and the Asian continent. Fabrizio Romano reported that NEOM would have now set its sights on Granit Xhaka from Bayer Leverkusen.

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What do you consider this challenge? Inform us every thing within the feedback.

This text was translated into English by Synthetic Intelligence.

📸 OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE – AFP or licensors