a loan move to rivals Al-Hilal<\/a> among those touted.<\/p>\n“Cristiano has been fully engaged with Al-Nassr since his arrival and has played an important role in the club’s growth and ambition,” added the Saudi Pro League spokesperson. “Like any elite competitor, he wants to win.<\/p>\n
“But no individual – however significant – determines decisions beyond their own club.<\/p>\n
“Recent transfer activity demonstrates that independence clearly. One club strengthened in a particular way. Another chose a different approach. Those were club decisions, taken within approved financial parameters.”<\/p>\n
Al-Nassr only signed Iraq Under-23 midfielder Hayder Abdulkareem in the January transfer window.<\/p>\n
Al-Hilal are unbeaten in the league this season and lead with 50 points after 20 games, while Al-Nassr are four points behind in third place, although they have a game in hand.<\/p>\n
The Saudi Pro League spokesperson said: “The competitiveness of the league speaks for itself. With only a few points separating the top four, the title race is very much alive. That level of balance reflects a system that is working as intended.<\/p>\n
“The focus remains on football – on the pitch, where it belongs – and on maintaining a credible, competitive competition for players and fans.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a statement issued to BBC Sport, a Saudi Pro League spokesperson said: “The Saudi Pro League is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-282906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}