Saudi and Redefine Identity on Sport: Cost US$6.3 Billion
Saudi and Redefine Identity on Sport: Cost US$6.3 Billion
Jeddah 10.10am / DC 3.10am / London 8.10am
Sebastian Vettel. Lionel Messi. Cristiano Ronaldo. At least 3 legend - champion in 2 sports, F1 and Football / Soccer, already linkage, directly or indirectly, was received gigantic money from Saudi. Even Messi received not only from Saudi but also Qatar: Messi was playing to PSG, owned by Qatari. Messi is ambassador of Visit Saudi until today, and hours ago play for 2nd time to Inter Miami CF, a MLS Club.
Saudi has spent at least $6.3bn (£4.9bn) in sports deals since early 2021, more than quadruple the previous amount spent over a six-year period, in what critics have labelled an effort to distract from its human rights record.
Saudi Arabia has deployed billions from its Public Investment Fund over the last two-and-a-half years, spending on sports at a scale that has completely changed professional golf and transformed the international transfer market for football.
On Monday, the Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal submitted a world-record bid for the French captain, Kylian Mbappé Lottin, understood to be worth €300m (£259m).
Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of the world’s best players has unleashed a feeding frenzy among agents and executives. The Saudis have spent the last month trying to make them form an orderly line.
At least 21 football / soccer players (now 22, thanks Jordan Brian Henderson), before playing years in Europe league, agree to play for at least 8 clubs in Saudi (with range salaries between US$200k - US$800k / week, arguably higher than in Europe) for new season started August 11, 2023 (with new name Roshn Saudi League —- thanks for ROSHN Saudi’s property company), following Cristiano Ronaldo last year.
Liverpool captain Jordan Brian Henderson is one of a handful of prominent male soccer players to have actively supported the LGBTQI+ community. But his move to Saudi Arabia leaves those in the community feeling let down. His move matters for a lot more reasons than hypocrisy. "Just at the moment where LGBTQI+ people may benefit from allyship, sport is rowing back and Henderson is just one encapsulation."
February 2023, just months after German national team use “rainbow” ribbon when playing in Qatar (World Cup 2022), as support LGBTQ+, Germany secured mammoth energy deal with Qatar.
Henderson will receive US$903k / week (700k pounds / week), or US$55 million / year. The biggest in Saudi still Cristiano Ronaldo, US$200 million / year.
Jordan Brian Henderson to be 22nd players in Saudi league with salary more than US$10 million / year.
Saudi still targeting Mbappe (US$1 billion all-in package not only salary), Sadio Mane (US$100 million / year).
Saudi not only try to “buying” Soccer / Football. But also other sports. And not only Saudi but also other middle east-petrodollar country.
(Saudi Football / Soccer Player Farah Jefry maybe the most popular women athlete in the entire Middle East, and maybe 3rd Most Popular Muslim/Arab descent athlete women in the world after Tunisian - No. 2 in the world for Tennis Women Ons Jabeur and Austrian Football / Soccer player Sarah Zadrazil)
The $6.3bn investment is almost equivalent to the GDP of Montenegro or the island of Barbados. It dwarfs data compiled by Grant Liberty two years ago, estimating that Saudi Arabia spent $1.5bn in the period between 2014 and early 2021.
Rights groups including Grant Liberty, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch term such spending “sportswashing” – bankrolling big-name sporting events in order to distract from a poor record on human rights.
“Previously, sports figures and brands had rejected offers to engage with Saudi Arabia due to its well-documented human rights abuses,” said Grant Liberty. “However, there has been a worrisome shift in moral stance, as lucrative deals are now being accepted despite the ongoing and deteriorating violations.”
After the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia was broadly shunned, with many major corporations withdrawing or pausing investments in the country.
But the past two years have seen a shift in how the kingdom is regarded internationally. Joe Biden, who once promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the killing, travelled there last year, greeting the crown prince and de-facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, with a controversial fist bump.
Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund – one of the 10 largest sovereign wealth funds in the world with assets estimated at $700bn – as well as other state bodies including the tourism authority, all signed since 2021. The $6.3bn total figure is probably an underestimate of the true amount, as the PIF is notoriously opaque about its finances, and details of some deals are not made public.
The purchase of Newcastle United in October 2021 by the PIF for $391m drew concerns from rights groups, notably Amnesty International, which criticised the club after leaked images showed changes to its away kit to match the colours of the Saudi national team.
Felix Jakens of Amnesty International said the choice “exposes the power of the Saudi dollar and the kingdom’s determination to sportswash its brutal, blood-soaked human rights record”.
A year later, the PIF stated its intention to spend $2.3bn on football sponsorships. This includes massive unspecified investments to buy majority stakes in four Saudi Arabian football teams. The four clubs have spent lavishly to attract players from around the world, particularly Al-Nassr, which signed star player Cristiano Ronaldo for a reported $200m annually, making him the world’s highest paid athlete.
Ronaldo’s signing last season has been followed by a host of stars and coaches including Karim Benzema from Real Madrid, N’Golo Kanté from Chelsea, Roberto Firmino from Liverpool, and the former Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard.
The footballer Lionel Messi is reportedly paid an estimated $25m by the Saudi Arabian tourism authority for his promotion of the country, including posting about lavish trips on social media. He received an offer from Al Hilal of £350m but instead opted for the US MLS team Inter Miami CF.
(Khaled Mohammed Khaled (born November 26, 1975), known professionally as DJ Khaled, devout muslim / moslem, not only very famous in America and have a lot of connection with billionaire and trillionaire. DJ Khaled also very popular in the Middle East. Another “proxy-win” for Saudi because Messi is Visit Saudi ambassador. Khaled born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Palestinian parents who immigrated to the United States)
In February this year, Saudi Arabia announced it would host the 2023 Fifa Club World Cup.
The PIF has also made major investments that have upended golf, and now make Saudi Arabia perhaps the most influential force in the sport. In October 2021, the fund invested an estimated $2bn to create LIV golf, a major tournament.
The move set off a bitter rivalry with the PGA tour, which took legal action claiming that the Saudi-funded project was luring players to breach their existing commitments. One lawsuit accused LIV of a campaign to use “astronomical sums of money … in an effort to use the LIV players and the game of golf to sportswash the recent history of Saudi atrocities and to further the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s … initiatives”.
PGA Tour confident it can see off any US investigation into LIV Golf alliance. Geoffrey “Geoff” S. Morrell, now president of Teneo, previously served a brief and contentious tenure as Disney's top communications official, has been retained by the Saudi Public Investment Fund to help with media relations for the PIF’s partnership with purpose Navigate PGA Tour-LIV Golf Merger, including PR -ing strategy for facing lawsuit and other complaint after merger. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has transformed itself from a sleepy holding company to a $1 trillion behemoth that snaps up everything from soccer clubs to electric carmakers.
The shift underscores the urgency of its mission: to prepare the world’s biggest crude-exporting nation for a post-oil future. PIF to invest at least $40 billion a year in Saudi Arabia and has already created 54 new companies, branching into sectors from real estate to luxury cruises.
The feud ended in dramatic fashion with an effective takeover of the PGA to create a conglomerate to dominate professional golf. The governor of PIF, Yasir al-Rumayyan, is slated to be the chair.
A PGA executive told the US Congress this month that the sovereign wealth fund would invest “north of $1bn” in the new body. The deal is being investigated by a US Senate committee.
Some of the kingdom’s other investments include boxing and motor sports. This year, YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul fought Tommy Fury in Riyadh for payments of $3.2m and $2m respectively, plus a share of the pay-per-view revenue. The kingdom also paid an estimated $60m to host a heavyweight match between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua in 2022.
In 2021, PIF invested in a $550m sponsorship of McLaren Group Ltd, a Bahraini-owned company based in Woking which is a major part of Formula One through its manufacture of racing cars. The $6.3bn figure, however, does not include the $40-45m which state-owned oil giant Aramco spends annually to sponsor Formula One, or other contracts signed prior to 2021 such as $65m to hold an annual Grand Prix in the kingdom. Saudi ARAMCO, the 6th biggest company on earth, until today sponsored F1 Aston Martin.
The total also excludes the PIF’s extensive spending in the world of e-sports, including a recent $1bn investment in video game company Embracer Group, and sporting events where the sponsorship amount is unknown, such as a March 2021 four-year deal between the planned city of Neom on the Red Sea coast and the Asian Football Confederation.
With basketball in hand, Saudi basketball player Mohanned Shobain has successfully scored many hoops in life and on the court.
Shobain is the CEO of the Jeddah Swish Basketball Academy and one of the first Saudi coaches to train Saudi female basketball players. He is also a licensed coach from FIBA (International Basketball Federation), and is currently in the second year of pursuing his FIBA Europe Coaching Certificate, which will enable him to coach anywhere in the world.
A Saudi Premier League champion, Shobain said: “I am the only Saudi and one of the two people selected from Asia to take this course. I am so thankful that I’ve been picked along with another Japanese coach because only NBA coaches take this course. It’s a very, very powerful license.”
For Shobain, basketball is more than just a sport.
“It’s a passion, and I feel like I can influence a lot of people to change the way they think, their mind toward the sport itself. It is not just a hobby, but it’s a lifestyle, and we can learn a lot from being inside the court such as dealing with people during the game, communication, leadership, sportsmanship, and anger management among others. It has taught me a lot of life lessons.”
After Shobain completed his master’s degree from Cleveland State University in 2016, he wanted to help the Saudi community through sports. “I saw there was a lot of demand in basketball as both male and female were hungry to learn,” he said, adding, “and, the programs that we had were exactly what they needed.”
In 2017, Shobain opened the doors to the Jeddah Swish Basketball Academy for budding basketball players both male and female. The academy played a pivotal role for Saudi female basketball players and coaches as it offered them both training programs and opportunities to grow.
The teams from the Swish academy have participated in national and international tournaments. “We have taken the girls’ team to Romania, Bucharest to play a three-on-three World Cup qualification tournament in 2019. We also took our boys team to Dubai once in 2018, and we’ve hosted the Saudi Kingdom Cup here in Jeddah in 2021,” he said proudly.
Shobain feels the new generation of Saudi female basketball has great potential, they just “need fine-tuning.”
“I do see that there’s a lot of skill, a lot of good talent, a lot of good potential. They just need the right training, the right equipment, and opportunity, such as this opportunity of playing in the Saudi Basketball Tournament to develop their game, gain experience, and influence others to love and start playing basketball.”
They just need the right training, the right equipment, and opportunity to develop their game, gain experience, and influence others to love and start playing basketball.
Mohanned Shobain, CEO of the Jeddah Swish Basketball Academy
The Jeddah Swish Basketball Academy has organized its first ever female Saudi Basketball Tournament with the Saudi Basketball Federation in Jeddah and Riyadh, which started on Jan. 22 and will finish on March 3.
During this summer, Shobain will take the girl’s basketball team to Europe for a basketball camp to further develop their skills. “The aim of this basketball camp is to get them ready for next year’s female Saudi Basketball Tournament,” said Shobain, who has previously assisted in coaching the Cleveland State basketball female team.
Saudi Arabia is embracing its first-ever female basketball generation.
“The performance is not expected to be of any comparison to WNBA level, but still, it’s just incredible to see these girls do what they do since they don’t have existing face-to-face role models here that they can talk to and see when it comes to female sports,” he said.
Dareen Sabban, 28, has been playing basketball since she was 17. She now wants to become a certified basketball player, recently joining one of Swish’s coaching programs. “I played with my university team at the first women’s basketball tournament at Al-Johara for an event that was organized by the Ministry of Health and the General Sports Authority in 2021, and we won first place,” said Sabban, who was also part of the Swish girls’ basketball team that went to Romania.
Sabban wishes to represent Saudi Arabia in basketball internationally and bring laurels to her country by winning championships and setting an example for future generations to take up the sport professionally. “Currently, I’m playing with my Swish team at the female Saudi Basketball Tournament and we have qualified for the semifinals,” she said.
Abrar Alghamri, 33, is another member of the Swish team and has been playing basketball since she was 10.
Basketball had taught her how to be patient, how to keep putting in efforts until you succeed and are satisfied with your performance. “It taught me sportsmanship, and how to deal with failures and successes. I realized that while I’m playing basketball, I’m learning about life as much as I’m learning about the game,” she said.
The first-ever women’s polo tournament in the Kingdom will take place in November at Al-Ittihad Academy Stadiums at the Nofa Equestrian Club Resort, near Riyadh, the Saudi Polo Federation has announced.
A Saudi women’s polo team will compete against Arab and international opposition for the first time at the event. The federation and Al-Hawafir Sports Company, the tournament’s official partner, are working with leading stables in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam to help the Saudi players prepare for the tournament.
Fashion shows featuring designers from the participating countries will take place on the sidelines of the tournament, organizers said.
Omar Zaidan, the president of the federation, said it is working to promote women’s sports and raise awareness of polo in line with the federation’s own strategy and that of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
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