The Saudis Are Buying Up Global Sports

[Oxeki]

They have the PGA I'm their back pocket with guys like Rory Mcilroy having egg on their faces. They have a contract apparent to play the Spanish super cup in Riyadh for 30m per year till 2029.

There's a rumoured 100m on offer for heavyweight boxing match in December.

They've also invested $38b in esports and own 10% of Nintendo.

Plus they're throwing bags of cash the ATP.
In the next decades they're gonna have their hands in every pie.

Not to mentioning their grubby links with Chelsea.

The depressing thing is they're it even a sports country but in the next decade they're gonna be preeminent global sports powerhouse.

What should be done to curtail their growing influence?

 

[Bloodbather]

All that can be done is for institutions to refuse working with the Saudi regime. That is very unlikely to happen in most cases because most of these institutions simply look at it as an open auction, so nothing can be done. At the organization level, they'll be able to do whatever they want so long as the money doesn't dry up and they're forced to allocate funds elsewhere.

The Saudi regime is doing what they're doing in a very calculated manner. This is not a sportswashing case anymore, this is part of their attempt to diversify their economy to stop being completely reliant on oil and natural gas exports. They're trying to turn their country into a sports tourism and advertisement hub. Being a sports powerhouse takes more than that, but the tourism and advertisement angle will work as long as it continues to get heavy funding and institutions continue to work with the regime and its affiliates as business partners.

 

[Batman]

They have the PGA I'm their back pocket with guys like Rory Mcilroy having egg on their faces. They have a contract apparent to play the Spanish super cup in Riyadh for 30m per year till 2029.

There's a rumoured 100m on offer for heavyweight boxing match in December.

They've also invested $38b in esports and own 10% of Nintendo.

Plus they're throwing bags of cash the ATP.
In the next decades they're gonna have their hands in every pie.

Not to mentioning their grubby links with Chelsea.

The depressing thing is they're it even a sports country but in the next decade they're gonna be preeminent global sports powerhouse.

What should be done to curtail their growing influence?

They're not really any worse than the US or Chinese who already have their hands in every pie. This is just the nature of late stage capitalism. Nothing is going to be done to curtail their influence because too many people in positions of power make too much money on fossil fuels.

 

[A_G]

They have the PGA I'm their back pocket with guys like Rory Mcilroy having egg on their faces. They have a contract apparent to play the Spanish super cup in Riyadh for 30m per year till 2029.

There's a rumoured 100m on offer for heavyweight boxing match in December.

They've also invested $38b in esports and own 10% of Nintendo.

Plus they're throwing bags of cash the ATP.
In the next decades they're gonna have their hands in every pie.

Not to mentioning their grubby links with Chelsea.

The depressing thing is they're it even a sports country but in the next decade they're gonna be preeminent global sports powerhouse.

What should be done to curtail their growing influence?

 

[Bloodbather]

They're not really any worse than the US or Chinese who already have their hands in every pie. This is just the nature of late stage capitalism. Nothing is going to be done to curtail their influence because too many people in positions of power make too much money on fossil fuels.

I would say Saudi Arabia and China are in a different category than the United States in this respect. With the former the investment is made by the state itself, whereas in the United States it's private enterprises doing it. The role of the state matters in any discussion regarding the ethics of it all, or rather, it should matter. Not that the US hasn't supported American private enterprises in foreign countries with political power, but still.

 

[Batman]

I would say Saudi Arabia and China are in a different category than the United States in this respect. With the former the investment is made by the state itself, whereas in the United States it's private enterprises doing it. The role of the state matters in any discussion regarding the ethics of it all, or rather, it should matter. Not that the US hasn't supported American private enterprises in foreign countries with political power, but still.

My point is more that the Saudis throwing their resources around and buying into industry and sports shouldn't really be demonized any more than the way that the US and China exert their power globally. Yeah you can call out the semantic difference between private investors and state investments but the reality is that private investors bought the US Government decades ago so the reality is that in some ways when you're dealing with a massive American investment arm you are in a sense, dealing with the state.

I just don't like the business of othering people, not that I'm accusing you of that mind you. I'm fine with a clarification of exactly who is doing what but I feel there's a knee jerk reaction to the Saudis for ethnic and religious reasons that doesn't occur when other entities operate largely the same way. The Saudis would need to do quite a bit of work to catch up to the influence of a group like Blackrock for example but very few would be as alarmist about them as they are the Saudis.

 

[Bloodbather]

My point is more that the Saudis throwing their resources around and buying into industry and sports shouldn't really be demonized any more than the way that the US and China exert their power globally. Yeah you can call out the semantic difference between private investors and state investments but the reality is that private investors bought the US Government decades ago so the reality is that in some ways when you're dealing with a massive American investment arm you are in a sense, dealing with the state.

I just don't like the business of othering people, not that I'm accusing you of that mind you. I'm fine with a clarification of exactly who is doing what but I feel there's a knee jerk reaction to the Saudis for ethnic and religious reasons that doesn't occur when other entities operate largely the same way. The Saudis would need to do quite a bit of work to catch up to the influence of a group like Blackrock for example but very few would be as alarmist about them as they are the Saudis.

No disagreement from me in terms of the way the countries in question exert their power through investments, I wouldn't say it's much different either, both operate under the same mechanisms of globalized capital markets.

My point was that when the state itself is the investor, they are the institution that becomes the business partner of whatever sports institution or enterprise is in question. That creates a different dynamic compared to the investment made by a private investor. The actions of the Saudi state itself comes into question when such business partnerships are established. This is not the case with an individually acting American private enterprise, as they are not beholden to the actions of the United States itself.

As I said, there have been exceptions for this in history where the United States itself, as a state, interfered in another country's politics in order to support a particular American enterprise there, e.g. the United Fruit Company and the military coup in Guatemala. But there clearly is a difference, in my mind, between the danger posed by a business partnership established with the Saudi state itself, and someone like Stan Kroenke or Todd Boehly. Same argument also applies to China, Russia, or any other case where the investments in question are largely the operations of the state itself. This is amplified when the state partner in question is one that has the type of problematic human rights record that Saudi Arabia does.

 

[Erlis]

All these Christian players going to saudi Arabia and who are idolized up to the sky (seen Ronaldos welcome), and are not seen as a threat to islam religion or the Middle East.

I have never seen or read a Muslim, fearing the Christian religion, only vice versa. And, I am serious.

 

[Dokaka]

All these Christian players going to saudi Arabia and who are idolized up to the sky (seen Ronaldos welcome), and are not seen as a threat to islam religion or the Middle East.

I have never seen or read a Muslim, fearing the Christian religion, only vice versa. And, I am serious.

Bruh are you for real?

Persecution of Christians 'coming close to genocide' in Middle East – report

Millions uprooted from homes, says UK-commissioned report, with many jailed and killed

www.theguardian.com

 

[Erlis]

I do not trust the media when it comes to Muslim countries. Maybe people living there should inform us more about what is happening there. I would have found it more accurate.

As for Turkey, I do not know how the situation is currently but I do know that the main headquarters of Orthodoxy is located in Istanbul.

 

[jones]

My point is more that the Saudis throwing their resources around and buying into industry and sports shouldn't really be demonized any more than the way that the US and China exert their power globally. Yeah you can call out the semantic difference between private investors and state investments but the reality is that private investors bought the US Government decades ago so the reality is that in some ways when you're dealing with a massive American investment arm you are in a sense, dealing with the state.

I just don't like the business of othering people, not that I'm accusing you of that mind you. I'm fine with a clarification of exactly who is doing what but I feel there's a knee jerk reaction to the Saudis for ethnic and religious reasons that doesn't occur when other entities operate largely the same way. The Saudis would need to do quite a bit of work to catch up to the influence of a group like Blackrock for example but very few would be as alarmist about them as they are the Saudis.

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

They want to change thier image around the world they not investing on sport only they investing on everything at the moment lol. They using this so the world change thier opinion.

Still i don't understand what the reason of buying pga we middle Eastern never interested in golf we can't play golf our countries are in middle of desert lol. Imagine playing golf and dust strom hit so fun.

 

[BigPoppaPump]

this is part of their attempt to diversify their economy to stop being completely reliant on oil and natural gas exports. They're trying to turn their country into a sports tourism and advertisement hub.

I mean this has always been the case, 'sportswashing' is some nonsense that means nothing. If anything hosting tournaments like the World Cup put more eyes on somewhere like Qatar rather than 'sportswash'.

All those middle Eastern countries just got jealous of Dubai and wanted to copy it whilst also bringing themselves into the world stage and being less isolated. They're trying to become like America and European countries instead of Russia and China that are more doing their own thing.

 

[Bloodbather]

All these Christian players going to saudi Arabia and who are idolized up to the sky (seen Ronaldos welcome), and are not seen as a threat to islam religion or the Middle East.

I have never seen or read a Muslim, fearing the Christian religion, only vice versa. And, I am serious.

That's because most of the Christian world is secular, and they don't have large groups attempting to convert people by force or through second-class citizen treatment. If this was Medieval times, you'd be feeling differently. Religion just isn't as big of a force in the Western world as it is in the Middle East.

Also, who the **** is going to feel threatened by a bunch of footballers? That sort of anxiety only happens when there are large swathes of people coming in.

I mean this has always been the case, 'sportswashing' is some nonsense that means nothing. If anything hosting tournaments like the World Cup put more eyes on somewhere like Qatar rather than 'sportswash'.

All those middle Eastern countries just got jealous of Dubai and wanted to copy it whilst also bringing themselves into the world stage and being less isolated. They're trying to become like America and European countries instead of Russia and China that are more doing their own thing.

Well, no, sportswashing is a legitimate term, just used in wrong contexts. It's the same thing as whitewashing or money laundering, funneling your money of shady origins into sports in order to whitewash it.

 

[Bloodbather]

I do not trust the media when it comes to Muslim countries. Maybe people living there should inform us more about what is happening there. I would have found it more accurate.

As for Turkey, I do not know how the situation is currently but I do know that the main headquarters of Orthodoxy is located in Istanbul.

Turkey is a secular country still, although the Islamist government is slowly but surely moving us away from that status, bringing in Islamic values and practices into governance. Islamic education is mandatory at the elementary level, many government events are opened with Islamic prayers, Islamic schools get additional funding, restrictions against alcohol are becoming more extensive, etc. Hagia Sophia was also recently converted from a museum into a mosque again. Christians and Jews aren't persecuted against at all, because they are deemed "Ahl al-Kitab" meaning "people of the book" and recognized, although anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are rampant.

It's the Alevis, a heterodox school of Shia Islam, and the irreligious that get persecuted the most. To use Islamic terms, the Sunni Hanafi majority of Turkey is more vitriolic towards what they consider to be "munafiqs" and "qafirs", meaning "hypocrites" and "disbelievers", and this sentiment is currently reflected by the government in charge.

 

[DJ_Markstar]

All these Christian players going to saudi Arabia and who are idolized up to the sky (seen Ronaldos welcome), and are not seen as a threat to islam religion or the Middle East.

I have never seen or read a Muslim, fearing the Christian religion, only vice versa. And, I am serious.

If you'd ever lived in Saudi Arabia you'd realise that they aren't too shy about enforcing their own culture on those moving to the country, so why would it be seen as a threat to them? A few footballers moving to a country to play football? You know that's what you're getting into when you choose to move there, it is what it is.

Besides, I doubt Ronaldo is going to be the type of character to fall foul of their laws or cultural norms anyway.

 

[tactica442]

So many high profile footballers moving there. The pay must be not only good but also arrangeably evadable from tax agency.