WHY HAS Saudi Arabia decided to invest so heavily in the world of sport?
That is one of the questions that animates the William Hill-nominated book ‘Engulfed’ by James Montague.
The billions spent by the country in football, boxing, and golf have irrevocably changed the sporting landscape.
With assistance from key figures in the British and American political establishment, such as Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, the Kingdom has engineered several monumental events, including the takeover of Newcastle United, the successful bid to host the 2034 World Cup, and the undermining of the PGA Tour by setting up the rival LIV Golf entity.
The investment in sport was connected with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, a plan to attract businesses and tourists to Saudi Arabia, and part of an attempt to diversify its economy so as not be so reliant on oil as it had been in the past.
This plan was initially carried out without the extravagant investments in sport.
But after the substantial PR damage caused by one of the most infamous assassinations in history, the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a new strategy was required, and Montague argues it is no coincidence that a dramatic increase in funds devoted to sport followed.
He tells The 42: “I think this is the biggest story in sport and probably in politics — the rise to power of autocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia and the power they have in the West, and how much the economy and society seem to be mirroring them more than, say, a democratic society. So this [book] is my attempt to try and tell that story.”
Having first visited Saudi Arabia in the late 2000s, Montague has been taken aback by the dramatic changes implemented since then.
He describes it initially as having “a very real sense of gender apartheid” and being “crushingly unfree” to a more open present day where women are allowed to work and drive, the mixing of sexes in everyday society is no longer taboo, et cetera.
“Part of the reason that change hadn’t happened in Saudi Arabia was that the old guard very much believed in incremental change. This is a fundamentally conservative society — we can’t bring in things like women driving because that is fundamentally something that society won’t accept.
The late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
“And actually, what it proved was that you can just overnight change things and people would accept it. And the transformation [was evident] from the very minute I landed in Riyadh for the first time — women were working there, stamping passports, for instance.
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“And you wouldn’t see women in public life at all [before]. I’d go to an Al Nassr football match, and there were groups of women going, not in their own section, but freely mixing with men. And those are things that, in the West, you take for granted. But these are foundational changes.
“So for all the negative things that you could point towards with MBS’s rise to power — the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the jailing of political opponents, the executions that are taking place, the fact that for a lot of Saudi activists, exiles who I’ve met and interviewed for ‘Engulfed,’ they say: ‘Yes, there is this cultural thing going on, but politically, the country has never been less free.’”
In many ways, the Saudis are following in the footsteps of the UAE and Qatar, who invested heavily in Man City and PSG, respectively, with the latter also hosting the World Cup in 2022. However, the transformation would likely not have taken place on such a dramatic scale were it not for Khashoggi’s murder, which US, British and Turkish intelligence all concluded MBS had approved of, although the Saudi crown prince has denied these claims.
“It can’t be overstated what Khashoggi’s murder did for its international reputation,” says Montague. “It could not have been lower. And the project that they settled on, that they agreed on, which really moved them back into a conversation where they tried to get beyond Khashoggi and start to rebuild their reputation, was the Newcastle United takeover.
“And so, one of the things that brought me to this book was interviewing Hatice Cengiz, who was Khashoggi’s fiancée. It was the reason he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul; he was called there to get a document that would allow him to get married. It was proof that he had been divorced. And speaking to her, she was very clear about what the takeover was, which was an attempt to rehabilitate MBS after Khashoggi’s murder.
“And to be honest, it has worked because, through multiple investments in sports, we really don’t hear about that anymore.
“And this isn’t necessarily something about Saudi Arabia. I think this is about the West. Western politicians, Western sportsmen and women, administrators are willing, really, to take the money, no questions asked. And there are very few people who have said ‘no’. And it’s a point I make in the book. Does that say something bad about Saudi Arabia, or does that say something bad about us?”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., right, speaks during a news conference with Hanan El-Atr Khashoggi, the widow of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as they call on President Donald Trump to release the transcript of a call he had with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after Khashoggi's killing, at the Capitol in Washington. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
One of the most interesting sections of the book involves the Newcastle takeover. Montague spends time with Magpies supporters both for and against this development, as well as those who are somewhat conflicted.
“There’s actually, I think, a silent majority that is very uncomfortable about it. But isn’t like changing a brand of tea or switching from iPhone to Android. If something happens to your football team and you have an ownership that you disagree with, you might have personal misgivings about that. But at the same time, the level that we’re talking about, supporting the football club, it’s not just a product. You are not a customer. This is decades, sometimes generations, of family connection, where someone’s relationship with their father, mother, uncles or cousins is through a football club. And to walk away from that, the level of villainy has to be almost extreme.
“And so, actually, the majority of people that I spoke to were in that camp. They were like: ‘We’re not comfortable with this at all, but what do you want me to do? No, I am not going to give up my club. I’m not going to give up my family. But that doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily happy about it.’
“On the other side, there was a very significant group of people who are wholeheartedly behind it, believing that actually, these human rights issues, or the issues about Saudi Arabia, it’s what-aboutism, making those criticisms. Because no one was talking about Manchester City, their human rights issues, or Qatar in the World Cup.”
Newcastle Fans don Saudi Arabian head scales ahead of the takeover scenes at St James's Park in October 2021. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
A vocal minority, led by the NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing group, have persistently opposed the takeover, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
“One of the people whom I spoke to was a guy who was very high level and works at Amnesty International, working literally on the sportswashing brief, but he’s there,” recalls Montague. “As uncomfortable as he is about the takeover, as unhappy as he is about what’s happening with gulf money, and the influence of gulf money, around the world, and campaigning against it, he still can’t extricate himself from Newcastle United, and it was almost, if this guy can’t, I’m not sure, really, what we expect [other] fans to do in that situation.”
Montague continues: “One thing that I remember someone telling me, which was from a Newcastle United fan who was in favour of the takeover, he was like: ‘Well, why should it be football fans that make this big moral decision about what’s right and what’s wrong about this investment, when almost everybody else in the system accepts the money, and it’s all okay, but it’s not okay when your football club gets bought?’ And I do have some sympathy for that, because I think there is a huge amount of hypocrisy about the fact that [Britain] can sell arms to Saudi Arabia, which are then used, for instance, in Yemen.
“But I think there is this point that these football fans have the least power in this system, right? What about the people who are really damaging it, like the arms companies, the governments that accept all this money, real estate companies, the real villains of the economy? What about them?”
A person playing the League of Legends video game. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Given the enormous power he wields, it is interesting to consider that MBS himself was once a peripheral figure in Saudi society. In the book, he comes across as a nerd, given a rare opportunity to live out a revenge fantasy.
“I mean, a nerd’s quite [apt] because he loves his gaming. I mean, this is one of the most interesting revelations that when I was researching the book, we’ve all seen the story about football and to a certain extent, golf, tennis is now a huge thing. I mean, almost every sport. But for me, the big thing was gaming.
“If you could choose a sport that was his sport — I mean, he’s nominally an Al Nassr fan — but he’s a gamer. He grew up playing all these games. League of Legends, I found out, was his game. And so he has driven this movement for Saudi Arabia to essentially now dominate the eSports market, which is actually hugely lucrative, and has a huge amount of [potential] growth.
“And actually, if you add up all the investments with PIF and its related funds, what goes into Newcastle United, what goes into LIV Golf, hosting the World Cup, building the infrastructure so that games can be developed in Saudi Arabia, it is a fraction of the cost of what’s going into eSports. So more is being invested in that than all of the other sports put together.”
President Donald Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia in the Oval Office. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
It is worth remembering too that for all the ways Saudi Arabia’s rulers have embraced modernity, the regime remains deeply repressive, backwards and ruthless in other respects. One example of thousands is the case of Omar and Sarah Aljabri, children of a former top Saudi intelligence official, Saad Aljabri, who have been unjustly imprisoned since March 2020, while Montague also cites Loujain al-Hathloul, who was arrested for protesting the right for women to drive.
“The use of travel bans and the arresting of family members to punish dissent is something that every person I spoke to had a story, had a placard of a family member or a friend or colleague who was being arrested and held in Saudi Arabia, almost as punishment for them being outside talking about these things. So it is a huge problem.”
In the current geopolitical climate, shaped by Donald Trump’s second term as US president, Montague does not see much prospect for international pressure advocating for prisoners’ release.
“A couple of weeks ago, I was back in DC for the World Cup draw. I was queuing to get into the Kennedy Centre where Donald Trump is being awarded this peace prize [by Fifa], which was absolutely ridiculous.
“But it was taking place outside the Saudi Embassy. That’s where the line was, on Jamal Khashoggi Way. And there’s a huge Saudi contingent there. They’re going to get the 2034 World Cup. And you can see this nexus of power within Fifa, the American government and the Saudis. And when you see that, you think, what pressure can be brought to bear to stop these things from happening, and I don’t see that in the medium term future at all.”
‘Engulfed: How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport, and the World’ by James Montague is published by Blink Publishing. More info here.
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From soft power to sportswashing: why Saudi Arabia is spending billions to revolutionise sport
WHY HAS Saudi Arabia decided to invest so heavily in the world of sport?
That is one of the questions that animates the William Hill-nominated book ‘Engulfed’ by James Montague.
The billions spent by the country in football, boxing, and golf have irrevocably changed the sporting landscape.
With assistance from key figures in the British and American political establishment, such as Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, the Kingdom has engineered several monumental events, including the takeover of Newcastle United, the successful bid to host the 2034 World Cup, and the undermining of the PGA Tour by setting up the rival LIV Golf entity.
The investment in sport was connected with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, a plan to attract businesses and tourists to Saudi Arabia, and part of an attempt to diversify its economy so as not be so reliant on oil as it had been in the past.
This plan was initially carried out without the extravagant investments in sport.
But after the substantial PR damage caused by one of the most infamous assassinations in history, the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a new strategy was required, and Montague argues it is no coincidence that a dramatic increase in funds devoted to sport followed.
He tells The 42: “I think this is the biggest story in sport and probably in politics — the rise to power of autocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia and the power they have in the West, and how much the economy and society seem to be mirroring them more than, say, a democratic society. So this [book] is my attempt to try and tell that story.”
Having first visited Saudi Arabia in the late 2000s, Montague has been taken aback by the dramatic changes implemented since then.
He describes it initially as having “a very real sense of gender apartheid” and being “crushingly unfree” to a more open present day where women are allowed to work and drive, the mixing of sexes in everyday society is no longer taboo, et cetera.
“Part of the reason that change hadn’t happened in Saudi Arabia was that the old guard very much believed in incremental change. This is a fundamentally conservative society — we can’t bring in things like women driving because that is fundamentally something that society won’t accept.
“And actually, what it proved was that you can just overnight change things and people would accept it. And the transformation [was evident] from the very minute I landed in Riyadh for the first time — women were working there, stamping passports, for instance.
“And you wouldn’t see women in public life at all [before]. I’d go to an Al Nassr football match, and there were groups of women going, not in their own section, but freely mixing with men. And those are things that, in the West, you take for granted. But these are foundational changes.
“So for all the negative things that you could point towards with MBS’s rise to power — the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the jailing of political opponents, the executions that are taking place, the fact that for a lot of Saudi activists, exiles who I’ve met and interviewed for ‘Engulfed,’ they say: ‘Yes, there is this cultural thing going on, but politically, the country has never been less free.’”
In many ways, the Saudis are following in the footsteps of the UAE and Qatar, who invested heavily in Man City and PSG, respectively, with the latter also hosting the World Cup in 2022. However, the transformation would likely not have taken place on such a dramatic scale were it not for Khashoggi’s murder, which US, British and Turkish intelligence all concluded MBS had approved of, although the Saudi crown prince has denied these claims.
“It can’t be overstated what Khashoggi’s murder did for its international reputation,” says Montague. “It could not have been lower. And the project that they settled on, that they agreed on, which really moved them back into a conversation where they tried to get beyond Khashoggi and start to rebuild their reputation, was the Newcastle United takeover.
“And so, one of the things that brought me to this book was interviewing Hatice Cengiz, who was Khashoggi’s fiancée. It was the reason he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul; he was called there to get a document that would allow him to get married. It was proof that he had been divorced. And speaking to her, she was very clear about what the takeover was, which was an attempt to rehabilitate MBS after Khashoggi’s murder.
“And to be honest, it has worked because, through multiple investments in sports, we really don’t hear about that anymore.
“And this isn’t necessarily something about Saudi Arabia. I think this is about the West. Western politicians, Western sportsmen and women, administrators are willing, really, to take the money, no questions asked. And there are very few people who have said ‘no’. And it’s a point I make in the book. Does that say something bad about Saudi Arabia, or does that say something bad about us?”
One of the most interesting sections of the book involves the Newcastle takeover. Montague spends time with Magpies supporters both for and against this development, as well as those who are somewhat conflicted.
“There’s actually, I think, a silent majority that is very uncomfortable about it. But isn’t like changing a brand of tea or switching from iPhone to Android. If something happens to your football team and you have an ownership that you disagree with, you might have personal misgivings about that. But at the same time, the level that we’re talking about, supporting the football club, it’s not just a product. You are not a customer. This is decades, sometimes generations, of family connection, where someone’s relationship with their father, mother, uncles or cousins is through a football club. And to walk away from that, the level of villainy has to be almost extreme.
“And so, actually, the majority of people that I spoke to were in that camp. They were like: ‘We’re not comfortable with this at all, but what do you want me to do? No, I am not going to give up my club. I’m not going to give up my family. But that doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily happy about it.’
“On the other side, there was a very significant group of people who are wholeheartedly behind it, believing that actually, these human rights issues, or the issues about Saudi Arabia, it’s what-aboutism, making those criticisms. Because no one was talking about Manchester City, their human rights issues, or Qatar in the World Cup.”
A vocal minority, led by the NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing group, have persistently opposed the takeover, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
“One of the people whom I spoke to was a guy who was very high level and works at Amnesty International, working literally on the sportswashing brief, but he’s there,” recalls Montague. “As uncomfortable as he is about the takeover, as unhappy as he is about what’s happening with gulf money, and the influence of gulf money, around the world, and campaigning against it, he still can’t extricate himself from Newcastle United, and it was almost, if this guy can’t, I’m not sure, really, what we expect [other] fans to do in that situation.”
Montague continues: “One thing that I remember someone telling me, which was from a Newcastle United fan who was in favour of the takeover, he was like: ‘Well, why should it be football fans that make this big moral decision about what’s right and what’s wrong about this investment, when almost everybody else in the system accepts the money, and it’s all okay, but it’s not okay when your football club gets bought?’ And I do have some sympathy for that, because I think there is a huge amount of hypocrisy about the fact that [Britain] can sell arms to Saudi Arabia, which are then used, for instance, in Yemen.
“But I think there is this point that these football fans have the least power in this system, right? What about the people who are really damaging it, like the arms companies, the governments that accept all this money, real estate companies, the real villains of the economy? What about them?”
Given the enormous power he wields, it is interesting to consider that MBS himself was once a peripheral figure in Saudi society. In the book, he comes across as a nerd, given a rare opportunity to live out a revenge fantasy.
“I mean, a nerd’s quite [apt] because he loves his gaming. I mean, this is one of the most interesting revelations that when I was researching the book, we’ve all seen the story about football and to a certain extent, golf, tennis is now a huge thing. I mean, almost every sport. But for me, the big thing was gaming.
“If you could choose a sport that was his sport — I mean, he’s nominally an Al Nassr fan — but he’s a gamer. He grew up playing all these games. League of Legends, I found out, was his game. And so he has driven this movement for Saudi Arabia to essentially now dominate the eSports market, which is actually hugely lucrative, and has a huge amount of [potential] growth.
“And actually, if you add up all the investments with PIF and its related funds, what goes into Newcastle United, what goes into LIV Golf, hosting the World Cup, building the infrastructure so that games can be developed in Saudi Arabia, it is a fraction of the cost of what’s going into eSports. So more is being invested in that than all of the other sports put together.”
It is worth remembering too that for all the ways Saudi Arabia’s rulers have embraced modernity, the regime remains deeply repressive, backwards and ruthless in other respects. One example of thousands is the case of Omar and Sarah Aljabri, children of a former top Saudi intelligence official, Saad Aljabri, who have been unjustly imprisoned since March 2020, while Montague also cites Loujain al-Hathloul, who was arrested for protesting the right for women to drive.
“The use of travel bans and the arresting of family members to punish dissent is something that every person I spoke to had a story, had a placard of a family member or a friend or colleague who was being arrested and held in Saudi Arabia, almost as punishment for them being outside talking about these things. So it is a huge problem.”
In the current geopolitical climate, shaped by Donald Trump’s second term as US president, Montague does not see much prospect for international pressure advocating for prisoners’ release.
“A couple of weeks ago, I was back in DC for the World Cup draw. I was queuing to get into the Kennedy Centre where Donald Trump is being awarded this peace prize [by Fifa], which was absolutely ridiculous.
“But it was taking place outside the Saudi Embassy. That’s where the line was, on Jamal Khashoggi Way. And there’s a huge Saudi contingent there. They’re going to get the 2034 World Cup. And you can see this nexus of power within Fifa, the American government and the Saudis. And when you see that, you think, what pressure can be brought to bear to stop these things from happening, and I don’t see that in the medium term future at all.”
‘Engulfed: How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport, and the World’ by James Montague is published by Blink Publishing. More info here.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
engulfed EPL Interview james montague Premier League soft power Newcastle United