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Cristiano Ronaldo’s $200 million-a-year stay in Saudi Arabia was dismissed by critics when it was announced in January as another game-washing stunt by a country with a grim human rights record.
Yet this proved to be only the beginning of a spending spree on football. After signing other late-career stars including Karim Benzema from Real Madrid, Saudi clubs, many of which have recently been acquired by the $650bn sovereign public investment fund, are now targeting players who are just are also at their peak, paying huge transfer fees and bumper wage packages to lure talent away from the European game.
This strategy has worried some in the football world. “The Saudis have taken over golf, the big boxing events and now they want to take over football!!! This game-washing needs to stop”, former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher said on Twitter last month.
Saudi Arabia’s entry into the world’s favorite sport has drawn comparisons to previous failed attempts to redraw the map of global football. Well-funded challenges have come and gone before, notably from China – where the costly effort to bring international stars into domestic leagues was increasingly burdened by financial reality. Some see the prospect of yet another short-lived bubble, others an expensive rebranding campaign.
“What is worrying is the generalization of Saudi Arabia. I search Twitter and the first page is only about football,” said Ronan Ewen, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, a leading fans group in the region. “We cannot just treat this as a football project.”
But the scene is very different in Riyadh, which is at the center of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic and social reform programme, under which the kingdom has slashed public life while spending billions to develop electric vehicles and industries ranging from tourism to gaming. But religious restrictions have been relaxed. and play.
According to Iman Alhussain, a non-resident fellow, in a football-obsessed country where most citizens are under 30, upgrading a flagging league that has captured the world’s attention from a regional curiosity seems like a natural bet. at the Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“I think it is too simplistic to view Saudi Arabian investment in sports from a sportswashing perspective,” he said. “Saudi Arabia’s diversification plans, growing regional competition and nation-branding efforts all play a role in the kingdom’s enterprise in sports at both the domestic and foreign levels.”
Bringing in international stars has also been part of plans to upgrade the league, along with a radical change in the administration of Saudi clubs. The $650 billion sovereign public investment fund, which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed and set to acquire English Premier League club Newcastle United in 2021, last month turned its attention to home and joined four top Saudi clubs in a bid to streamline its operations. Took control of.
Saudi Deputy Minister of Sports Badr Alkadi said, “Like every football-loving nation, we want to build and enjoy the best possible league, one that sits at the top of our football pyramid, inspires our people and engages all fans.” Get excited.” financial Times.
Alkadi dismissed allegations of rigging at the Games, which followed repeated criticism of the kingdom for its regular detention of critics and mass executions of convicts, and several years after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi state agents. came later.
The new sports campaign includes golf’s entry into the state, with the state setting up a rival circuit to the US PGA Tour, fighting it in court and then agreeing to a merger, which has been objected to by US lawmakers. Saudi Arabia has also invested in motorsport, horse racing and boxing, and is negotiating possible deals in tennis.
Critics have condemned the move as an attempt to clean up the country’s image abroad.
But Alkadi said such criticism usually “comes from people who haven’t visited the country, haven’t seen or welcomed the progress.” , , Since 2020 alone, the number of sports federations in Saudi Arabia has increased by more than 50 percent. The level of sport participation and physical activity in the adult population in 2015 was only 13 percent. , , and now sits at 48 percent.”
Saudi officials say the strategy also promotes another Saudi ambition of becoming a tourism hub. While efforts to lure Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi, seen by many as the greatest of all time, ultimately failed, he remains on a lucrative contract to promote the kingdom’s visit.
Fahd Hamidaddin, head of the Saudi Tourism Authority, said, “Working with tourism ambassadors like Messi is part of our strategy to show the world what we can offer, and now it’s easier than ever to travel ”
Riyadh’s more vigorous efforts to promote football domestically began shortly after the World Cup in neighboring Qatar late last year, when Saudi Arabia’s surprise victory over eventual champions Argentina in the group stages was one of the highlights of the tournament. Was.
The Saudi government has now set its sights on bringing the World Cup back to the region, potentially by 2030, with a joint bid with Greece and Egypt.
It could also be eyeing the Club World Cup, which is due to resume in a new format in 2025. FIFA is hoping to make the competition a global rival to Europe’s Champions League – a tournament that generates billions of euros in revenue each year from broadcasting deals.
The revised FIFA tournament will pit 32 teams against each other, including four teams from the Asian Football Confederation, in which Saudi teams compete. Ah Ahly, one of the four Saudi teams recently transferred to the PIF, has already qualified for the 2021 Asian Champions League after winning it. Saudi Arabia will host the Club World Cup in its current guise later this year.
Christian Nouri, managing partner of Retexo Intelligence – a consultancy that advises clubs on the purchase of their players – said that raising wage demands, delaying contract renewals and forcing clubs to change had put Saudi pressure on the European transfer market. The impact of the spending has already been “significant”. The players they thought would stay.
He added: “Europe’s biggest teams are still trying to understand which players they could lose and how much money they will have to spend to find short-term or long-term solutions to their departures, which they didn’t expect.” ”
UEFA president Aleksandar Ceferin is more dismissive, calling the current rush to bring players into Saudi Arabia “a mistake” and comparing it to an earlier failed attempt to turn China into a global football power.
For a brief period in the middle of the last decade, Chinese clubs paid huge transfer fees and agreed record-breaking salaries to lure big-name signings and renowned coaches into the Chinese Super League.
Mainland investors also bought some of Europe’s biggest clubs, including Inter Milan and AC Milan, and took stakes in clubs such as Manchester City and Atlético Madrid.
But the grandiose project quickly fizzled out as many of the private companies promoting it ran out of money and Beijing withdrew its political support. The domestic league had fallen into disrepair, and many of China’s overseas acquisitions went waste.
Riyadh’s sporting ambitions are unlikely to face the same financial constraints. The sovereign wealth fund is now planning to launch a sports investment company with a multibillion-dollar war chest to make further acquisitions.
“Saudi Arabia is trying to play catch-up, and it is using its financial clout to do so,” said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Schema Business School. “We’ve tried to do to Saudi Arabia in a few years what took the English Premier League decades.”
Cristiano Ronaldo’s $200 million-a-year stay in Saudi Arabia was dismissed by critics when it was announced in January as another game-washing stunt by a country with a grim human rights record.
Yet this proved to be only the beginning of a spending spree on football. After signing other late-career stars including Karim Benzema from Real Madrid, Saudi clubs, many of which have recently been acquired by the $650bn sovereign public investment fund, are now targeting players who are just are also at their peak, paying huge transfer fees and bumper wage packages to lure talent away from the European game.
This strategy has worried some in the football world. “The Saudis have taken over golf, the big boxing events and now they want to take over football!!! This game-washing needs to stop”, former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher said on Twitter last month.
Saudi Arabia’s entry into the world’s favorite sport has drawn comparisons to previous failed attempts to redraw the map of global football. Well-funded challenges have come and gone before, notably from China – where the costly effort to bring international stars into domestic leagues was increasingly burdened by financial reality. Some see the prospect of yet another short-lived bubble, others an expensive rebranding campaign.
“What is worrying is the generalization of Saudi Arabia. I search Twitter and the first page is only about football,” said Ronan Ewen, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, a leading fans group in the region. “We cannot just treat this as a football project.”
But the scene is very different in Riyadh, which is at the center of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic and social reform programme, under which the kingdom has slashed public life while spending billions to develop electric vehicles and industries ranging from tourism to gaming. But religious restrictions have been relaxed. and play.
According to Iman Alhussain, a non-resident fellow, in a football-obsessed country where most citizens are under 30, upgrading a flagging league that has captured the world’s attention from a regional curiosity seems like a natural bet. at the Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“I think it is too simplistic to view Saudi Arabian investment in sports from a sportswashing perspective,” he said. “Saudi Arabia’s diversification plans, growing regional competition and nation-branding efforts all play a role in the kingdom’s enterprise in sports at both the domestic and foreign levels.”
Bringing in international stars has also been part of plans to upgrade the league, along with a radical change in the administration of Saudi clubs. The $650 billion sovereign public investment fund, which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed and set to acquire English Premier League club Newcastle United in 2021, last month turned its attention to home and joined four top Saudi clubs in a bid to streamline its operations. Took control of.
Saudi Deputy Minister of Sports Badr Alkadi said, “Like every football-loving nation, we want to build and enjoy the best possible league, one that sits at the top of our football pyramid, inspires our people and engages all fans.” Get excited.” financial Times.
Alkadi dismissed allegations of rigging at the Games, which followed repeated criticism of the kingdom for its regular detention of critics and mass executions of convicts, and several years after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi state agents. came later.
The new sports campaign includes golf’s entry into the state, with the state setting up a rival circuit to the US PGA Tour, fighting it in court and then agreeing to a merger, which has been objected to by US lawmakers. Saudi Arabia has also invested in motorsport, horse racing and boxing, and is negotiating possible deals in tennis.
Critics have condemned the move as an attempt to clean up the country’s image abroad.
But Alkadi said such criticism usually “comes from people who haven’t visited the country, haven’t seen or welcomed the progress.” , , Since 2020 alone, the number of sports federations in Saudi Arabia has increased by more than 50 percent. The level of sport participation and physical activity in the adult population in 2015 was only 13 percent. , , and now sits at 48 percent.”
Saudi officials say the strategy also promotes another Saudi ambition of becoming a tourism hub. While efforts to lure Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi, seen by many as the greatest of all time, ultimately failed, he remains on a lucrative contract to promote the kingdom’s visit.
Fahd Hamidaddin, head of the Saudi Tourism Authority, said, “Working with tourism ambassadors like Messi is part of our strategy to show the world what we can offer, and now it’s easier than ever to travel ”
Riyadh’s more vigorous efforts to promote football domestically began shortly after the World Cup in neighboring Qatar late last year, when Saudi Arabia’s surprise victory over eventual champions Argentina in the group stages was one of the highlights of the tournament. Was.
The Saudi government has now set its sights on bringing the World Cup back to the region, potentially by 2030, with a joint bid with Greece and Egypt.
It could also be eyeing the Club World Cup, which is due to resume in a new format in 2025. FIFA is hoping to make the competition a global rival to Europe’s Champions League – a tournament that generates billions of euros in revenue each year from broadcasting deals.
The revised FIFA tournament will pit 32 teams against each other, including four teams from the Asian Football Confederation, in which Saudi teams compete. Ah Ahly, one of the four Saudi teams recently transferred to the PIF, has already qualified for the 2021 Asian Champions League after winning it. Saudi Arabia will host the Club World Cup in its current guise later this year.
Christian Nouri, managing partner of Retexo Intelligence – a consultancy that advises clubs on the purchase of their players – said that raising wage demands, delaying contract renewals and forcing clubs to change had put Saudi pressure on the European transfer market. The impact of the spending has already been “significant”. The players they thought would stay.
He added: “Europe’s biggest teams are still trying to understand which players they could lose and how much money they will have to spend to find short-term or long-term solutions to their departures, which they didn’t expect.” ”
UEFA president Aleksandar Ceferin is more dismissive, calling the current rush to bring players into Saudi Arabia “a mistake” and comparing it to an earlier failed attempt to turn China into a global football power.
For a brief period in the middle of the last decade, Chinese clubs paid huge transfer fees and agreed record-breaking salaries to lure big-name signings and renowned coaches into the Chinese Super League.
Mainland investors also bought some of Europe’s biggest clubs, including Inter Milan and AC Milan, and took stakes in clubs such as Manchester City and Atlético Madrid.
But the grandiose project quickly fizzled out as many of the private companies promoting it ran out of money and Beijing withdrew its political support. The domestic league had fallen into disrepair, and many of China’s overseas acquisitions went waste.
Riyadh’s sporting ambitions are unlikely to face the same financial constraints. The sovereign wealth fund is now planning to launch a sports investment company with a multibillion-dollar war chest to make further acquisitions.
“Saudi Arabia is trying to play catch-up, and it is using its financial clout to do so,” said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Schema Business School. “We’ve tried to do to Saudi Arabia in a few years what took the English Premier League decades.”
