Here we need to remember that Al Qadsiah is not one of the clubs under the sponsorship of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). Therefore they don't have a lot of funds available with them. This club is based in Dhammam and is owned by Saudi Aramco. It is encouraging that such a club is spending a huge amount of money (€65 million) on Mateo Retegui. This will improve the competitiveness of the league, and will decrease the gap between the clubs sponsored by the PIF and the rest.
Well, it seems that competition in the Saudi Pro League isn't just dominated by clubs under the PIF. Even when it comes to signing star players from Europe, we know it's not just the teams under the PIF that are doing it. But take Al-Qadisiyah, for example. They still compete fiercely in the transfer market to bring in quality players from Europe, even without funding from PIF. And it’s not just Al-Qadisiyah; several other teams do the same. The only difference is that the players they bring in aren’t as expensive as those brought in by clubs under PIF ownership. Except for Al-Ettifaq. Oh, by the way, Al-Ettifaq turns out to be majority-owned by PIF, so it’s no surprise that this team also has many European star players. I initially thought Al-Ettifaq was like Al-Qadisiyah, recruiting expensive European players even though it’s not owned by PIF. But it turns out that the majority of its shares are indeed owned by PIF.