When football player signings concluded this summer, Saudi Arabia’s checkbooks recorded €1 billion in purchases, equivalent to $1.05 billion in today’s money. Athlete representatives toured Europe and the Middle East looking for ways to get their stars to join the Arab sheikhs’ teams.
So players from the world’s best teams are packing their bags and heading to Arabia, following the route Cristiano Ronaldo started in January. Neymar, Benzema, Sadio Mane, N’Golo Kante, Mahrez, Fabinho and others, with Steven Gerrard as the new coach and Messi as the tourism ambassador, this kind of The waste reflects an avalanche of petrodollars from the kingdom of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the almighty heir. One of the few people on Earth who can set the world price of oil by simply turning the production spigots on and off.
Behind this media transfer, bin Salman is said to be hoping to restore Saudi Arabia’s damaged reputation in the West. The Arab millionaire hopes to “use sport to cleanse his image”.he Sports washing It has also been used to cover up incidents such as the horrific death of newspaper columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Washington post He was murdered inside the Istanbul consulate after daring to criticize questionable respect for human rights, abuse of women, homosexuals and freedom of expression.
Bin Salman never realized that sport could be used to cleanse his and his kingdom’s image.But he recently told Fox News very clearly: “If Sports washing will increase our GDP by 1% and we will continue Sports washing. I don’t care what they call it. If I get 1% growth through sports, I’m going for 1.5%. Whatever you call it, I want that 1.5%. “
The prince knows he has the perfect bait to become the master of anyone he wants: power and money. With a salary that no one else could afford as easily as he could, he lured Benzema into signing a two-year, $440 million contract with Al Itihad. It is said that Ronaldo’s annual salary in Al Nasr is 200 million. Al Hilal made a record €300 million ($330 million) offer to Paris Saint-Germain for Kylian Mbappe this summer, but the French star did not accept it.
In 2021, a Saudi consortium acquired the Premier League team Newcastle United for US$391 million and achieved success. It spent US$126 million in the first year and got out of the relegation zone. In the second game, they finished fourth and qualified for the Champions League for the first time in 20 years.
The purchase of foreign players and teams, as well as the creation of local teams and competitions at home and abroad, is carried out by the Saudi government itself. These financial movements are carried out through two channels: the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign fund managed by bin Salman with assets of more than $700 billion. Another avenue for million-dollar investments is through Saudi Aramco, the world’s most profitable oil company.The numbers are impressive: $10 billion spent on six major sports, comments economist.
The prince also put money into golf. He merged a new Saudi championship, LIV Golf, with the PGA Tour, the sport’s main U.S. tour. And not only did he insist on the idea of hosting the tournament, he also wanted to get players to compete in the U.S. by offering hundreds of millions of dollars in transfer fees to the best players.
The heir to the throne has also invested his petrodollars in Formula One racing. Aramco, the official Saudi oil company, is not only one of the main sponsors of motorsport. The ceremony was being held in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah, a modern business hub where a race track is being built near Riyadh and amid debunked rumors of a $20 billion takeover of Formula One. It is discussing men’s and women’s tennis and will host the 2029 Asian Winter Games despite bad weather.
Bin Salman cannot be accused of lacking vision. While his vanity is indeed well known, with his desire to be number one among Arab countries and compete with Qatar, which has already won the Football World Cup, his plans in sport appear to go further. The world is moving toward an energy transition, and although Saudi oil exports will exceed $166 billion this year (16% of GDP), the prince has pledged to implement a plan he calls “Vision 2030.” Through the plan, he intends to reduce dependence on crude oil, new industries, integrate women into the workforce and create a freer society, he said.
But most importantly, redirect the PIF’s $777 billion to other areas, including brands and technology. Sports drive tourism. He hopes the star-studded Saudi professional league will attract investment and fans, with 100 million visitors by 2030.
Although the investment figures in sports are impressive, compared with the huge oil wealth, this figure represents only 1.6% of assets in the PIF’s 2021 annual report. Furthermore, in addition to oil, Saudi Arabia has other resources to develop sports. There are 18 teams participating in the league, of which PIF accounts for 75%, 4 teams account for 75%, and 1 Saudi Aramco. Bin Salman made it clear that “under our soil lie gold, phosphates, uranium and many other valuable minerals. But our real wealth lies in the ambition of our people and the potential of our young generations.”
That generation were football fans, 80% played football. This boosted plans for Saudi Arabia and its Prince bin Salman, who appeared at the World Cup in Qatar alongside FIFA president Gianni Infantino, to make football one of the pillars of their efforts to “become a world power” . It also helped him establish his image in the West, while goals from Ronaldo, Neymar and Benzema broke the net in the Saudi desert as the kingdom raised its strong hand to demand hosting the 2034 World Cup.
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