Saudi Pro League lining up world record offer for Vinicius Junior | OneFootball

Real Madrid winger Vinicius Junior continues to be the subject of transfer interest from Saudi Arabia, with a fresh report of a world record offer being prepared for the summer.

Vinicius has flourished into one of the best players in the world since Madrid first agreed a deal with Flamengo for the the-16-year-old prodigy back in 2017. He may not have won the 2024 Ballon d’Or, but he walked away as Best FIFA Men's Player a few months later.

The player has repeatedly pledged his allegiance to Madrid, but that may be tested by the insanely lucrative contract that could be his in the Saudi Pro League.

Bizarrely, the actual club is not yet known, with the country's sovereign wealth fund (Public Investment Fund, or PIF) controlling the league's big four: Al Hilal, Al Nassr, Al Ahli and Al Ittihad. Al Hilal would be the obvious early choice, if only because Neymar has now left the club.

Neymar's Al Hilal exit leave a superstar-sized void to be filled / Yasser Bakhsh/GettyImages

AS writes that Saudi officials want to test Madrid's resolve with a €300m (£251.5m) offer, which far exceeds the existing €222m world record when Neymar joined Paris Saint-Germain in 2017. It is the same amount offered to PSG for Kylian Mbappe in the summer of 2023, with the bid accepted by the club but the proposed transfer to Al Hilal then rejected by the player.

Madrid are expected to direct any suitor to Vinicius Junior's €1bn (£838m) release clause. The exception to that is if he asks to leave the club, which the Saudi Pro League would be banking on when they present their incomprehensible contract offer to the Brazilian.

The proposed net salary over the course of a five-year deal would reach €1bn, the equivalent of €200m each season, just under €17m per month, and in excess of €4m per week.

Madrid's intention is to discuss fresh terms of their own with Vinicius Junior, whose existing contract already pays €20m annually but is still ten times less than the Saudi proposal, in summer.