Until the dark Saudi shadow completely consumes the sport

One year ago today, Cristiano Ronaldo moved to Saudi Arabia. This marks the beginning of an unprecedented attack on soccer. Within a year, the kingdom has turned the sporting world upside down, while FIFA applauds - and many people experience incredible suffering.

Nobody saw this attack coming. Somehow it was already a foregone conclusion, but many did not want to admit it. And nobody suspected how abrupt and violent it would be. Saudi Arabia's offensive in 2023 eats into the entire sporting world like a dark shadow. With dangerous consequences for people without the power of sports stars. Threatening, powerful - and unstoppable.

Of course, pompously staged boxing matches in the kingdom, staged as mega-events, have been around for a few years now. Even when the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was just a year ago. This was followed by smaller sports such as snooker and then, in 2022, the major attack on golf. And Saudi Arabia has also been no stranger to soccer since 2021 at the latest, when it bought English Premier League club Newcastle United and, according to The Independent, provided decisive support for the founding of the Super League, which ultimately failed for the time being.

But that the shadow could mutate into such a sinister spectre that the existing soccer system is suddenly threatened. That a kind of attack on the old bulwark of Europe, including the top leagues and Champions League (there are always rumors about a team from the kingdom in the top flight), could take place and overshadow them in the future. That Saudi Arabia really does want to hijack, take over and dominate soccer and other sports.

That Cristiano Ronaldo and co. would serve as a means to an end, so that Salma al-Shehab, the 35-year-old PhD student who was sentenced to 34 years in prison and a subsequent 34-year travel ban in August 2022 for complaining on Twitter about the lack of women's rights in the kingdom, would not be talked about. Nobody really expected that.

Benzema and Neymar follow Ronaldo

The soccer offensive involves an odyssey costing almost one billion euros - not including salaries, Neymar's luxury hotel with 25 rooms or golden thrones on airplanes. Ronaldo kicks things off in January, followed in the summer by Brazilian superstar Neymar, Ballon d'Or winner Karim Benzema, ex-Bayern star Sadio Mané and many more. There are plenty of rattles in the woodwork of the top European clubs, partly because nobody can keep up with the Saudi millions (the financing rules of the European association UEFA do not apply here, of course) and the clubs in the Saudi Pro League are still allowed to buy when the transfer window has already closed in Europe.

According to an analysis by auditing firm Ernst & Young, the value of the sporting events industry in Saudi Arabia is growing by eight percent annually (from two billion euros in 2018 to an estimated three billion euros in 2024). The ultimate goal is the 2034 FIFA World Cup - the biggest sporting event on the planet. But more on these plans later.

Next up is tennis, even if the type of investment is not yet clear. "There are talks here at Wimbledon and it is said that the Saudis are getting closer with an offer," DTB President Dietloff Arnim told ntv.de on the sidelines of the Wimbledon tournament in London. Saudi Arabia is also meeting with open ears in cycling (the leading racing team Jumbo-Visma is to be taken over), handball (after the Club World Championships of the past four years, the state also wants to host a World Cup tournament in 2029 or 2031) or esports (after the purchase of German esports companies, Riyadh will organize its own annual Esports World Cup from summer 2024 - with the largest prize money in the history of esports, of course).

Islam and a "pot of money"

All these investments require a lot of money. Or even a "pot of money", as Uli Hoeneß described it in an interview with ntv/RTL in the fall. What the honorary president of FC Bayern meant was the PIF, the almost inexhaustible Public Investment Fund. The kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, which owns some of the clubs in the Saudi Pro League, is said to be worth around 600 billion euros. Recently, the country also founded a new investment company that focuses exclusively on sports companies.

The sports takeovers are part of the "Vision 2030", with which Saudi Arabia wants to open up to the West and modernize and make the economy independent of oil within just two decades. But there is much more at stake here. For example, power, as the Saudi ruling family wants to use big soccer stars and sporting events to curb the threat of rebellion and keep the young population (63% of the 32.2 million Saudis are 29 years old or younger) calm and satisfied. The aim is to strengthen national identity.

But, as is so often the case in the region, it is also about religion. Many of the new summer arrivals belong to the Muslim faith. In addition to the lavish transfer fees and salaries, religion and a sense of security and belonging are also reasons for their odyssey to the homeland of Mecca and Medina.

Islam is an important ideological currency for the kingdom, which wants to take the supremacy in terms of religious soft power in the Muslim world. The aim is for the kingdom to become a respected superpower in a new multipolar world order through soccer and other glittering sporting events. Riyadh is just as self-confident in this order as it is in the world of sport, as demonstrated by its rapprochement with Israel before the war in the Middle East. Geopolitics can hardly be separated from the world of sport.

"Torture and mistreatment" in Saudi Arabia

The West and Germany are often initially critical of new players from the Middle East. But because the West has been pointing a finger at human rights, women's rights and LGBT rights for some time now, Saudi Arabia feels encouraged to define what Islam stands for in the 21st century. And to rebuke the secular West, as it has long done with non-Western countries. A self-confident Riyadh not only wants to show that there is more than one way to organize sport and hijack soccer, but also to organize society.

On the one hand, the West must be able to put up with this and accept that sporting events in the Gulf region and the Middle East are highlights for the many local fans that they have never seen before. The jubilant mood of many Muslim fans from various countries at the World Cup in Qatar, for example when Saudi Arabia beat Argentina or Morocco advanced to the semi-finals, showed how great the desire for Ronaldo and co. can really be there.

On the other hand, the West is not raising its index finger without good reason. The kingdom is rightly highly controversial due to its various human rights violations. And in any case, the 20 percent of Saudi Arabia's 32.2 million citizens who live in poverty - many of whom are women or members of female-headed households - cannot take part in the glittering soccer, boxing or golf events.

The 2023 country report by Human Rights Watch sees "peaceful dissidents, intellectuals and human rights activists arrested" and citizens "sentenced to decades in prison for posting on social media". Like Salma al-Shehab, for example. Abusive practices in detention centers, "including torture and ill-treatment", prolonged arbitrary detention and confiscation of assets without a clear trial, remain pervasive.

Bin Salman stands by sportswashing

But that's not all: "The human rights situation in Saudi Arabia is deteriorating in many respects," said Stephen Cockburn, who is responsible for economic, social and cultural rights at Amnesty International in London, at the end of November. War crimes in Yemen? The alleged killings of hundreds of Ethiopian asylum seekers at the border? 81 executions in one day? Even minors are not immune to the death penalty. The Saudi rulers want to conceal this sinister shadow - and this is where sport, with its powerful radiance, comes into play.

Sportswashing is the name of the game. Using major events and investments in sport to conceal the crimes and human rights violations. Images of Ronaldo and not of Salma al-Shehab or Jamal Khashoggi are supposed to dominate abroad. At the end of September, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, commented on these accusations for the first time and admitted that this method is a kind of state policy. In an English-language interview with US broadcaster Fox News recorded in Saudi Arabia, "MBS" said that he was "indifferent" to the accusations against his country. For "MBS", only the increase in gross domestic product counts. "If sportswashing increases my gross domestic product by one percent, then I will continue to do sportswashing," he said. And so, bit by bit, sport is being swallowed up by the shadow of crime.

Bin Salman, who has also been the country's prime minister since 2022, is one of the most powerful men on the planet and doesn't care about the accusations or the people in his prisons and those who have been executed. Nevertheless, the crown prince, who is responsible for one of the darkest periods of human rights violations in the country's history, has long since found great admirers in FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino. The FIFA boss is in and out of the kingdom, shaking hands and grinning eagerly at the cameras. According to the British "Times", the Saudi oil giant Aramco is to become a new major sponsor of FIFA for around 100 million euros per year.

However, FIFA and Infantino are not only legitimizing the sport-washing methodology and the large investments in soccer and co. with a deteriorating human rights situation; they are going a huge step further. At the end of November, they made Saudi Arabia the quasi-fixed host of the 2034 World Cup, although the actual award will not take place until the last quarter of 2024. That fits: Back in 2013, then FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke stated when explaining the world governing body's strategy for selecting World Cup hosts: "I'm going to say something crazy, but less democracy is sometimes better for the organization of a World Cup." Valcke was later convicted of corruption, but his love for autocrats remained.

Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia "as disposable goods"

For Riyadh, the summit is near. The ultimate goal of all efforts in the attack on the sporting world. The ultimate soccer tournament as the brightest diamond yet in the sportswashing crown. The takeover of world soccer is secured for at least one summer (or rather winter). Qatar has shown the way, Saudi Arabia will go one better in terms of pomp and "best World Cup ever" (in Infantino's own words).

And the situation in the kingdom is similar to that in the emirate when it comes to human rights violations in the labor sector. Trade unions, strikes and protests are banned. Just a few days ago, a report by Human Rights Watch stated that the Gulf states "treat migrant workers as disposable commodities". While the sporting world will continue to suffer until the 2034 World Cup, the real next disaster in the making is a human one.

Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo earns 200 million euros a year, shakes hands with Mohammed bin Salman and smiles for the cameras - and Salma al-Shehab suffers in prison for standing up for women's rights.