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.
The highlight has also largely succeeded in redefining narratives about Saudi Arabia’s reputation in countries like 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 efforts to attract fans. skill and foreign events.
“Some people might call it sportswashing,” Simon Chadwick, a professor at SKEMA Business School in Lille, France, who specializes in the links between geopolitics, economics and sports, 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 conducted 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 past decade include Azerbaijan, China, Israel, North Korea, and Turkmenistan, as well as other wealthy monarchies in the Arabian Peninsula, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, which also have expanding power, have invested in their sporting heritage 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 funded in part by Lithura leader Muammar el-Gaddafi and is considered one of the largest clashes of the 20th century.
Decades earlier, in the years before 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 fashionable Olympic Games. Games.
However, in the case of Saudi Arabia, the kingdom is already a highly globalized country with deep ties to East and West. Accusations of gender discrimination, labor abuses and other human rights violations, such as the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul, have done little to deter U. S. and European investments in the kingdom.
When it comes to sportswashing, Chadwick says the term would arguably be too widely implemented (or poorly implemented) to have a meaningful definition, especially when it comes to Saudi Arabia, whose sports-focused projects go far beyond the nation’s simple symbol abroad.
“I think the term has been appropriated in a harmful and simplistic way through the media, but also through fan teams and others who need a quick and undeniable way to characterize what other people like Saudi Arabia are doing right now,” Chadwick said. I say harmful because I think, especially to those of us in the North who refer to sportswashing, that it’s just a very undeniable way to take off our shoes, lean back in our chair and say, ‘Them. ”They’re just sports washing machines. ‘”
“What we do,” he added, “is think more conscientiously about the more nuanced and varied nature of the activities that Saudi Arabia and others are involved in lately. “
Sport is just one of the principles 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 filed in 2016, a year before Crown Prince Mohammed was named heir through his father, King Salman. Since then, that crusade has come to dominate the trajectory of Saudi domestic and foreign policy, especially as the young royal has 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 beneficial for everyone,” Fahad Nazer, a spokesman for the Saudi embassy in the United States, told Newsweek. “This is helping the kingdom to 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 aimed first and foremost at the kingdom itself, Nazer argued.
“The concept that the transformative reforms taking place lately in the kingdom are just an attempt to make it its global symbol is largely wrong,” he said. “Every measure or initiative implemented in Saudi Arabia has one of two main objectives: to advance the national interest of the kingdom as a whole, or the lives of the Saudi people, or both.
“All other considerations are left behind,” he added.
While gambling may not be the main apparent driving force of national change, Aseel Alghamdi, an assistant professor of marketing at the Prince Mohammed bin Salman School of Business and Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City, spoke directly about how they have compatibility in the kingdom’s grand plans for the future.
“Investment in this area is part of Vision 2030 to position the country as a hub for events to promote quality of life, create job opportunities and, most importantly, diversify the economy away from oil and fuels (i. e. hydrocarbons), so that other similar sectors thrive, such as tourism and culture,” Alghamdi told Newsweek. “And gaming is the main cornerstone of any of those GDP-like sectors. “
Alghamdi estimates that Saudi Arabia welcomed as many as 40 million tourists last year, a testament to a welcome to foreign visitors that has managed to triumph over negative media coverage.
“Sport, by default, is full of energy, passion, activity, happiness and joy, and those ‘real’ approaches from Saudi Arabia to sports spectators around the world are being positioned within a very conscientiously crafted Saudi tourism, culture and brand programme. “People, he added, in the United States, have begun to realize Saudi Arabia’s massive 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 and 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 hiring of soccer megastar Cristiano Ronaldo for national soccer league team Al Nassr FC, the acquisition of English Premier League soccer club Newcastle United, major events such as WWE PPV, MMA and boxing, the FIFA Club World Cup in December 2023 and the annual Saudi Arabian Formula 1 Grand Prix, as well as the creation of the PIF-owned LIV Golf League 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 country in the Middle East 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 sporting 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 it is in the interest of others to work with the Saudis,” Alghashian said. “The good fortune of the Saudis is that they know how to turn their big front into play because they never sought to gain legitimacy or foreign acceptance. “
“On the contrary, they speak in terms of interests,” he added. “Basically, they claim that the overseas games that the Saudis are investing in, organizing, and promoting will improve the game thanks to the wonderful Saudi support. This is anything that “The Saudi ruling elite has dominated for decades. “
Crown Prince Mohammed expressed his candid perspectives on such allegations in an interview with Fox News in September last year.
“If game washing is going to increase my GDP by one percent, then I will continue to practice game washing,” the crown prince said at the time. “I don’t care. A GDP increase of one percent through gambling and my goal is by one percent and one part; Call it what you will, let’s get that one and a part. ” %. “
Mugbil Binjudia, chief executive of Saudi Arabia’s FG Sports, also downplayed outside 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 your wise leadership, is advancing a mammoth task that begins with Vision 2030 and is made up of successes that all will see. “and experience, God willing, in the years to come. “
“That is 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 economic, political and social arenas. . . all the successes achieved so far are only the beginning, and God willing, everyone wills. Do us justice when the gigantic Saudi task is completed, and you’ll 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 its leaders,” Binjudia said, “and does not accept in any way that sensible and 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 today in Saudi Arabia is evidence that leaders are taking Saudi Arabia to the top,” he added, “and the Saudis are proud of this and have blind and unlimited acceptance as true in their leaders. “
While attracting Western audiences could be a key component of the fortunes of the kingdom’s large investment in global sport, the Saudi public could ultimately become the biggest player.
Citing 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 among his other friends than he is in promoting those projects. “. ” to the west. “
“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 hasn’t been hard to come by.
“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. , they derive advantages 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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