Saudi Arabia’s ambitious bid for a world-class player in foreign sports has brought the kingdom unprecedented global attention, becoming a key component of its social and economic transformation through the broader mission of Vision 2030 led by its de facto leader, the Crown. Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
This development has also largely succeeded in redefining narratives about Saudi Arabia’s reputation in countries such as the United States, where long-standing considerations about the country’s human rights scene have been particularly diluted as Riyadh reaps the comfortable strength of its multibillion-dollar business. efforts to attract fans. skill and foreign events.
“Some people might call it sportswashing,” Simon Chadwick, a professor at the SKEMA Business School in Lille, France, who specializes in the links between geopolitics, economics and sport, told Newsweek. “But still, I think there’s also anything in terms of image, reputation, legitimacy, and that, to me, is a very important word, legitimacy. “
“Because if you contribute to the good fortune of games and gaming events, which the rest of the world considers important,” he added, “then you reach a much more potent position of legitimacy. “
The crusade turns out to be working. A recent vote taken on behalf of Newsweek via Redfield
Just over 48 percent expressed fear about the value of gaming investment through Saudi Arabia’s $900 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF). And yet, 33 percent of those who say they are gaming enthusiasts would use the PIF to acquire their favorite. team, compared to 32% who would oppose such a measure.
The definition of “gambling” provides for “the use of a game or a gambling occasion to advertise a positive public symbol of a sponsor or host (usually a government or advertising organization) and as a means of misappropriating attention toward other activities considered controversial. “. unethical or illegal.
The term has been appearing in the media for years. In addition to Saudi Arabia, other countries that have earned this label in the last decade include Azerbaijan, China, Israel, North Korea and Turkmenistan, as well as other wealthy monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula: Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which also They have more and more power. invested in its sporting assets in recent years.
The phenomenon is much older. For example, the iconic 50-year-old boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, known as the “Rumble in the Jungle” and held in the former African country of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, was widely regarded as an attempt through the country’s former president, Mobutu Sese Seko, to triumph over a beleaguered reputation as a Third World autocrat.
The event was also reportedly partly funded by Lithura leader Muammar Gaddafi and is considered one of the largest clashes of the 20th century.
Decades earlier, in the years leading up to World War II, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler oversaw the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Foreign collecting was widely celebrated at the time and came to define much of the imagery and customs now associated with the fashionable Olympics. Games.
However, in the case of Saudi Arabia, the kingdom is already a highly globalized country with deep ties to the East and the West. Accusations of gender discrimination, hard labor abuses and other human rights violations, such as the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul, have done little to deter Americans and Europeans from investing in the kingdom.
Regarding game laundering, Chadwick argued that the term would possibly be implemented too broadly (or poorly implemented) to have a meaningful definition, specifically in relation to Saudi Arabia, whose gaming-focused projects aim for much more than just the country’s symbol. abroad.
“I think the term has been appropriated in a harmful and simplistic way through the media, but also through teams of fanatics and others who need a quick and undeniable way to characterize what other people like Saudi Arabia are doing in this moment,” Chadwick said. I say harmful because I believe, especially to those of us in the North who are referring to sports washing, that it is just a very undeniable way to take off our shoes, sit back in our chair and say, ‘Them. ‘ ‘They’re just sports washing machines. ‘”
“What we are doing,” he added, “is thinking more consciously about the more nuanced and varied nature of the activities that Saudi Arabia and others are involved in lately. “
Sport is just one guiding principle of Vision 2030, the ambitious plan to reshape the kingdom through social reforms and diversifying the economy to make it less dependent on oil. It was first revealed in 2016, a year before Crown Prince Mohammed was named heir through his father, King Salman. Since then, this crusade has come to dominate the trajectory of Saudi domestic and foreign policy, especially as the young royals have assumed greater strength and influence within the absolute monarchy.
“As far as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is concerned, making an investment in the sports sector and selling it is a win-win,” Fahad Nazer, spokesman for the Saudi embassy in the United States, told Newsweek. “This is helping the kingdom achieve several of its Vision 2030 goals. This includes diversifying the economy, creating jobs and improving the quality of life for Saudis and expatriates. “
“It has also created a new generation of young men and women who play the sports they love and proudly constitute the kingdom on foreign stages,” he added.
Like the rest of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia’s push to identify itself as a global sports destination is directed first and foremost at the kingdom itself, Nazer argued.
“The concept that the transformative reforms being carried out lately in the kingdom are just an attempt to turn it into its global symbol is largely erroneous,” he said. “Every measure or initiative implemented in Saudi Arabia has one of two main objectives: advancing the national interest of the kingdom as a whole, or the lives of the Saudi people, or both.
“Any other attention is left behind,” he added.
While gaming may not be the apparent main driving force of national change, Aseel Alghamdi, assistant professor of marketing at the Prince Mohammed bin Salman College of Business and Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City, spoke directly to how They have compatibility in the great plans of the kingdom for the future.
“Investment in this domain is component of Vision 2030 to position the country as a hub for gameing occasions to advertise quality of life, create task opportunities, and maximum importantly, diversify the economy away from oil and fuel (i. e. , hydrocarbons), which will other similar sectors to thrive, such as tourism and culture,” Alghamdi told Newsweek. “And game is a primary cornerstone for either of those GDP-similar sectors. “
Alghamdi estimates that Saudi Arabia received up to 40 million tourists last year, a testament to a welcome to foreign visitors that has managed to trump negative media coverage.
“Sport, by default, is full of energy, passion, activity, happiness and joy, and these ‘genuine’ approaches by Saudi Arabia towards sports spectators around the world are positioned within the framework of “A Very Very Saudi Logo Program. ” conscientiously elaborated in tourism”. , culture and entertainment,” Alghamdi said. “People, including in the United States, have begun to realize Saudi Arabia’s abundant and honest efforts to become a major player in sports, among many other sectors. “
As such, he argued, “it would be counterintuitive to host all those incredibly well-run, high-impact sporting events where human rights are an issue, as is the case. “
Among the most notable achievements so far in Saudi Arabia’s attempt to win over foreign sports enthusiasts are the signing of soccer megastar Cristiano Ronaldo to national soccer league team Al Nassr FC, the purchase of the English Premier League football Newcastle United, major events such as WWE, MMA and boxing pay-per-views, the FIFA Club World Cup in December 2023 and the annual Formula 1 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, as well as the creation of the LIV golf league, owned by PIF, as a rival to the classic giant PGA. , with negotiations underway for a merger between the two.
Saudi Arabia will now host this year’s Women’s Tennis Association final, the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, the 2029 Asian Winter Games and the 2034 FIFA World Cup, the second Middle Eastern country to do so. after Qatar. All of this further strengthens the Kingdom’s position as a global leader in sports and brings it closer to achieving its Global Vision 2030.
“Vision 2030 is the horizon that aims only to restructure Saudi Arabia, but also to reimagine the Saudi state,” Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi foreign policy expert and SEPAD research fellow at Lancaster University’s Richardson Institute in the United Kingdom, told Newsweek. “A desirable role in Saudi Arabia as it is the link between top-down investments and bottom-up initiatives. “
“Also, the game in general is a universal language and Saudi Arabia needs to be a universal hub,” Alghashian said. “Therefore, investing in games, hosting gaming events, and promoting outstanding athletes puts Saudi Arabia on the global map, which is for the 2030 goals. “
This trend demonstrates Riyadh’s patience in pursuing this path despite the opprobrium that still resonates with critics.
“The Saudis have thick skin, and after decades of demonization through accusations, they are conditioned to continue with their projects because they know that others are interested in working with the Saudis,” Alghashian said. “The good fortune of the Saudis is that they know how to turn their large front into play because they never sought to gain legitimacy or foreign acceptance. “
“On the contrary, they speak in terms of interests,” he added. “They are necessarily projecting that overseas games that the Saudis invest, organize and promote will elevate the game with wonderful Saudi support. This is what the Saudi ruling elite has dominated for decades. “
Crown Prince Mohammed openly expressed his views on such allegations in an interview with Fox News in September last year.
“If gambling laundering is going to increase my GDP by one percent, then I will continue to practice gambling laundering,” the crown prince said at the time. “I don’t care. % of GDP expansion through the game and my goal is % and a part; call it what you want, we are going to achieve that % and a part. ” %. “
Mugbil Binjudia, CEO of Saudi Arabia’s FG Sports, also downplayed external complaints about the kingdom’s pressure on global sports leadership and the achievement of Vision 2030.
“The successful user is a warrior,” Binjudia told Newsweek. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under his wise leadership, is advancing a gigantic task whose beginning is Vision 2030 and whose extent is made up of successes that all will see. And experience, God willing, in the years to come. “
“That’s why some will continue to complain, for purely non-public reasons,” he added. “Either they are hateful, or they are trolls, or they are afraid of the kingdom. As long-term competitors for positions in all areas of economic, playing fields, political and social. . . all the successes achieved so far are just the beginning , and God willing, they will all do it. Do us justice when the gigantic Saudi task is completed, and you will see the Saudi game in a position worth performing.
Binjudia said Saudi citizens also support the initiative at a time when Vision 2030 has fueled a new sense of nationalism.
“What others don’t know about Saudi society. . . is that it is a society that loves its leaders and them,” Binjudia said, “and in no way accepts that sensible leaders who paint day and night are harmed. ” for the progress of Saudi Arabia as a country and as a people. »
“The progress that is happening in Saudi Arabia today is evidence that the leaders are taking Saudi Arabia to the top,” he added, “and the Saudis are proud of this and have a blind and unlimited acceptance as true in their leaders. “
While attracting Western audiences could be a key component of the good fortune of the kingdom’s large investment in global sport, the Saudi public could ultimately become the most important player.
Referring to Crown Prince Mohammed’s reaction to the sportswear laundering allegations, Natalie Koch, a political geographer and professor at Syracuse University in New York, told Newsweek that the future monarch “is more involved in promoting those projects to his other parents than in selling them. “those projects.
“MbS’s biggest challenge with global investment in sport is that it needs to modernise economic, political and social life in Saudi Arabia according to Western models, but without alienating a component of the Saudi population that does not like the concept of ‘selling out’. toward the West,” Koch said. So all those big sports investments want to consciously be located in a way that contributes in some way to Saudi national interests. “
In any case, Western wasn’t hard to find.
“That’s one of the biggest upheavals of the cliché of sports washing,” Koch said, “the fact that it focuses too much on the Saudi aspect of the story, at the expense of how other people in the sports world, adding to the Westerners athletes, team owners, organizing committees and institutions, sports media, etc. , everyone benefits from these primary investments.
“They are satisfied with receiving cash from Gulf investors,” he added, “including Saudi Arabia. “
Based in his hometown of Staten Island, New York, Tom O’Connor is an award-winning senior foreign policy and deputy editor of National Security and Foreign Policy at Newsweek, where he specializes in covering the Middle East, North Korea, China, and Russia. and other spaces for foreign business, relations and conflicts.
In the past, he has written for the International Business Times, the New York Post, the Daily Star (Lebanon), and the Staten Island Advance. His paintings have been cited in more than 1,700 educational articles, government reports, books, news articles, and other bureaucracy from studios and media around the world. He has contributed to studies in several foreign media outlets and has participated in Track II International Relations similar to the Middle East, as well as scholarships to study at the Korea Society and the Japan Foreign Press Center. .
Follow @ShaolinTom for news about X and its official Facebook page. Email t. oconnor@newsweek. com with tips or for comments and media appearances.
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