Saudi Arabia is shaking up the world sports game with investments of unprecedented size and characteristics. The Desert Kingdom accumulates signings of iconic champions and events of global appeal in an initiative that raises to a new level the coupling of the sports sector to global geopolitical, political and economic movements. The great Eastern authoritarian regimes increasingly openly challenge the West and its primacy in search of a reconfiguration of a world order, taking advantage of their greater executive agility compared to democracies; The nationalist identity feeling gains weight in half the world as political collagen; and the world of sports shows reflections of that change with the Saudi effort as an emblem.
Political leaders have understood the transcendental value of sport for at least a century, and many authoritarian regimes have attempted to use it as a tool for propaganda, cohesion, and projection of an image of strength on a national and global scale. But the Saudi maneuver opens a new stage, which goes beyond the traditional vectors – holding major events, training talents capable of winning victories and medals or, more recently, investments in foreign private clubs – adding a strategy of attracting money. of sovereign wealth funds from world-class champions to build a new broad-spectrum national sports ecosystem.
The Saudi push has, according to experts, different motivations: the need to diversify an economy that will soon not be able to sustain itself on energy monoculture; the will to spur through sport a feeling of identity, of belonging, in a society with many young people; and, according to some, the desire to sportwashing, that is, the washing of the image through sport of an authoritarian regime that bears responsibility for systematic discrimination against women or homosexuals, for the lack of political and expression rights to the point of dismembering a journalist in a diplomatic headquarters. To achieve this, he makes enormous investments that have led to the signing, in different roles, of figures such as Karim Benzema, Rafa Nadal, Jon Rahm or the organization of events such as the 2034 World Cup.
The Saudi initiative is extremely striking but it is not the only movement that shakes up world sport and connects with the geopolitical spirit of the times. The sector is also witnessing, in another order, the great international debate regarding the participation of Russia and its athletes in international competitions, which is obviously also a reflection of the geopolitical changes underway. The International Olympic Committee decided last December that, although Russia cannot compete as such, its athletes can do so under a neutral status. The measure was widely criticized by Ukraine and some of its allies. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is moving to organize alternative events – such as the Friendship Games or the BRICS Games – in an attempt to shore up circuits different from the traditional ones, which it sees as dominated by the West.
The two stories show how the great earthquakes that shook this turbulent decade have replicas in the world of sports. Below, a look at it.
New balances of power
The balance of power in the world has been shifting towards the East for decades. And sport is no exception.
“The Saudi investment program is an example of the de-Westernization of sport,” observes Lukas Aubin, head of the Sports and Geopolitics program at the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations. “This dynamic fits perfectly with that of a geopolitical environment in which the West loses weight,” says the expert.
Although the USSR and the countries of the Warsaw Pact -first- and China -later- have over time posed very strong sporting competition to Western countries with great feats in the Olympic medal tables, it is evident that these have been the center of sport’s main gravity as it hosts the major professional leagues or the major tournaments in the most popular disciplines, such as football, basketball or tennis. But the Saudi effort seeks to erode that primacy with an intensity never seen before, signing great soccer players or bidding to be the organizational epicenter of major competitions in sports such as Formula 1, tennis or golf.
Saudi Arabia thus reinforces a broader movement. On the one hand, it is worth noting that countries in the region such as Qatar or the United Arab Emirates had already started with partly similar strategies. But their small size prevents them from pursuing part of what Riyadh is looking for, the roots of a national ecosystem, such as the soccer league promoted by the Saudis.
On the other hand, data collected by researchers at the University of Copenhagen indicate that the share of international sporting events organized by autocratic regimes fell from 36% in the period 1945-1988 to 15% between 1989 and 2012 but has since risen. at 37%.
Natalie Koch, professor at Syracuse University, in the United States, and specialized in the geopolitics of sport with a special focus on the Arabian Peninsula, points out the importance in this matter of the willingness of a handful of regimes to invest large sums in the organization of events. facing the difficulty for increasingly polarized and fragmented democracies to form consensus to sustain such projects.
This phenomenon also coincides with a phase of deterioration in democratic quality in the world and with a movement of open challenge by authoritarian regimes to a world order that they perceive as biased in favor of the West.
“Authoritarian regimes already decided at the beginning of the 20th century to use sport as an instrument of power, of power, of propaganda, of soft power. Without a doubt today this use of sport is extremely developed,” says Aubin.
There remain in the history of sports episodes such as the 1936 Berlin Games, with which Nazi Germany wanted to show its strength to the world (having to swallow the extraordinary feat of the African-American American athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals); the soccer World Cup won by fascist Italy or the extraordinary effort dedicated by a rapidly rising China to the 2008 Beijing Games, where both the organization and the sporting results were enormous.
More recently, foreign investments have been added to these traditional strategies (such as the Qatari one in PSG or the Emirati one in City). Saudi Arabia opens a new path because it tries to establish a national sports ecosystem with the help of a sovereign fund’s checkbooks through a series of star signings. The operation is underway, but, Aubin warns, although the checkbook is deep, “it is too early to know if it will be sustainable.”
nationalism
Some experts consider that an important element in the Saudi strategy is the attempt to “sportwashing”. Koch, however, does not believe that this is the main reason for the Saudi action. “I believe that the main reasons are internal development,” says the expert. “On the one hand, of an economic nature, in the sense of creating new activity, attracting tourists, etc. On the other hand, of a political nature, with the objective of building legitimacy of the State, of promoting a consensus of Saudi nationalism. “Saudi Arabia is a very young nation.”
“These investments try to connect with as many young Arabs who have an interest in sports,” Koch continues. “It is part of the construction of a new identity, one that goes beyond the concept of being the epicenter of the Sunni Muslim world. It is not a case that in the region these movements begin after the Arab Spring which, even if it did not affect much in the area, it did scare the leaders,” she concludes. Saudi Arabia has moved after Qatar or the UAE, but it is doing so now with all its weight.
Aubin agrees on the fundamental importance of this calculation. “The idea is to legitimize the regime in power, buy a kind of social peace, foster a kind of national pride through the sports sector,” he says. “In this too, it is too early to give definitive judgments. Sport can allow a certain degree of emancipation, in the stands for example. It is an instrument of power, but with a double cut. It is used by power, but also by the people. It is not easy to control what the fans do in the stands. And suddenly very significant things can be heard in large concentrations of people.”
The fragmentation
The bipolar world of the Cold War witnessed serious episodes of fragmentation in the sports sector with the Olympic boycotts of Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984. After the fall of the wall, the world has gone through what is known as the unipolar era – with the hegemony of USA – and is now entering a phase of multipolarity accompanied by new symptoms of fragmentation.
The exclusion of Russia from international competitions on the back of first a structural doping scandal and then the large-scale invasion of Ukraine has reactivated a scheme of fragmentation and the consequent fights for the control or influence of international sports command bodies.
“For some years now we have been witnessing an attempt to build, especially by Russia, a non-Western sports world,” says Aubin, who specializes in the post-Soviet world. “The USSR created the friendship games. Something similar is being attempted today. Moscow is trying to organize non-traditional international events, such as the Future Games (Kazan, February 21 to March 3) or the BRICS Games (also in Kazan, in June) or the Friendship Games (Yekaterinburg, September). “Try to build an alternative model, considering the IOC too Western.” As in pure geopolitics, where Russia is the spearhead of an attempt to subvert the current order, in sport it also seeks agitation. It remains to be seen what effects this pulse will have.
Regarding investments from authoritarian regimes endowed with enormous financial resources, Koch points out how there is growing scrutiny regarding certain investments coming from these regimes, with actors who have understood the value of sport as a sounding board to denounce certain abuses. So, here, the scheme of the fight between democracies and dictatorships is replicated.
The sports sector therefore accompanies to a large extent the metamorphosis of a world that experiences sudden pulses of power, undisguised recourse to nationalism, international fractures that emerge and widen. The result of this process is uncertain, both on a general and sporting scale, but change is underway.
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