By Oliver Bruce
On December 11 of last year, it was announced that the 2034 World Cup would be hosted in Saudi Arabia. With this comes extensive construction plans, including a proposed 92,000 seat stadium in Riyadh and a futuristic stadium 350m above ground in Neom. These stadiums are also part of a larger Saudi infrastructure plan for a city known as ‘The Line.’ Selecting Saudi Arabia as the host nation was highly controversial, with convenient rule changes and alleged collusion, leading the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) to vote against FIFA’s awarding of hosting rights by acclamation. The NFF president went as far as to claim that the 2030 and 2034 editions had already been decided prior to the vote.
This controversy is part of a greater trend of massive investment in sport that came to particular prominence with the rise to power of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has spent a dizzying £4.9 billion between 2021 and 2023. Such investment has gone into a diverse range of sports including the LIV Golf tour, the Saudi Grand Prix as well as the full purchase of English Premier League Club, Newcastle United. Arguably the most notable example of this investment was the signing of five-time Ballon d’Or winner, Cristiano Ronaldo, to Saudi football club, Al Nassr, on a wage that was reported to be around €200 million per season. Many consider this to be a deliberate attempt by the Saudis to ‘sportswash’, a political term which refers to investment in sport in order to improve an actor’s or a country’s image, often in an effort to cover for rocky records on human rights and actions taken in warzones.
Saudi Arabia certainly does not have the best reputation when it comes to these issues. Perhaps the most commonly cited reason for this is its human rights violations. The nation is known for its minimal freedom of expression and history of detaining and imprisoning individuals with no opportunity to legally defend themselves against vague charges. An example of this is PhD student Salma al-Shehab, who was sentenced to a twenty-seven-year prison sentence and a twenty-seven-year travel ban following a number of tweets that she made in support of women’s rights. The Saudi government is also known for its liberal use of the death penalty, such as in the case of Hussein Abo al-Kheir. Following a controversial trial process – which included a denial of legal representation and being tortured into confession – al-Kheir was convicted of smuggling drugs and was later executed. This decision neglected an October 2022 ruling made by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention which found al-Kheir’s detention to be arbitrary and called for his death sentence to be revoked.
The case of Jamal Khashoggi is particularly emblematic of Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian repression transcending liberal norms on both human rights and the rights of the press. Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist known to be critical of MBS particularly following his self-imposed exile from Saudi Arabia in 2017. However, in 2018 he was made to return to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up divorce documents and upon arrival he was confronted by a ‘negotiation team’ who forcibly held the journalist and injected him with a massively excessive amount of drugs. His death led to widespread outrage across the West with a number of states imposing sanctions on figures associated with the murder and US Republic Senator, Bob Corker, saying that “If the crown prince went in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes.”
Saudi involvement in Yemen’s civil war adds an additional layer to its already poor international image. Saudi Arabia led the coalition of Gulf states which economically isolated and conducted air strikes against the Houthis following their rise to power in Yemen. Such actions have garnered attention from international human rights groups for their alleged killing of civilians. This criticism only caused further damage to their public image and diplomatic standing of Saudi Arabia and its leader, MBS.
MBS refutes the idea that his country invests in sport for the sole purpose of ‘sportswashing.’ In an interview with Fox News, he stated instead that “if sport washing is going to increase my GDP by way of 1%, then I will continue doing sport washing”. He argues that these investments in sport are part of ‘Vision 2030,’ which lists in its goals, building a ‘Vibrant Society’, a ‘Thriving Economy’ and an ‘Ambitious Nation’. This vision reflects an internal desire for Saudi Arabia to bring to a halt its overdependence on oil and diversify its economy. So far, the Gulf state has made efforts to lessen the cost of business and encourage entrepreneurship through investment deals, licences and new legislation, as well as making efforts to obtain more private sector investment.
(AP Photos/Jon Super)
Amnesty International UK’s Head of Priority Campaigns, Felix Jakens, believes MBS’ comments to be disingenuous and states that “no amount of talk about economic visions or an expansion into new sporting ventures should be allowed to distract” from these human rights violations, pointing to the 196 peaceful activists killed in the country in the previous year. While this does reflect a sentiment shared by a great number of the general population, it is clear that sportwashing can be effective: for instance, the scene outside St James’ Park on the day of the announcement of the Saudi-backed purchase of Newcastle United. On that day, several Newcastle fans unapologetically donned the Ghutra with little understanding and consideration of the actions of the state that they were supporting.
The success of Qatar’s World Cup in 2022 succeeded in changing people’s perception of the nation (according to a 2024 study). The study, conducted by several people in the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre, found that while the World Cup had a limited impact on changing perceptions in liberal European Countries, like the United Kingdom or Germany, they were still able to leave a positive impression on citizens of less liberal states such as Romania. They partially credited this lack of change in liberal states down to a prominence of critical media and suggested that critical journalism can reduce the impact of sportswashing efforts while uncritical journalism can work to further legitimise authoritarian regimes. Given the positive impact of sportswashing on another, illiberal country, it is understandable why Saudi Arabia may consider this tactic a worthy addition to their effort to rehabilitate their image.
To understand why Saudi Arabia invests so heavily in sports, both sportswashing for a reputation boost and economic gains to contribute to MBS’ Vision 2030 are plausible explanations. However, as mentioned by Felix Jakens, human rights violations against its own citizens – and those of other countries – should not be distracted from these financial benefits of sportswashing, nor movements towards diversification of the Saudi economy. The Saudi sportswashing phenomenon entails investment in major international sporting events with massive global appeal and viewer numbers. As seen in Qatar, hosting these competitions has at least somewhat of an impact on changing public perceptions of the host country; thus, it makes sense as to why Saudi Arabia would commit to hosting the 2034 World Cup. This decision is likely both for the purposes of sportswashing and for diversifying the Saudi economy. However, diversifying your economy and hosting a successful sporting event does not excuse a state from human rights violations – it is of the utmost importance that critical media coverage is present to deny the success of sportswashing and uphold human rights.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own, and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist.
Image Credits: Harold Cunningham – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images