After Cristiano Ronaldo last winter, the Saudi championship recorded, in a few days, the arrivals of Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kanté, perhaps before other major footballers.
In six months, Saudi football has changed in dimension. With the signings of Cristiano Ronaldo, then Karim Benzema, the Saudi Pro League has offered itself two players who weigh six Ballons d’Or in total, while the echo of its championship hardly exceeded its own borders. The arrival of French world champion N’Golo Kanté, made official on Wednesday June 21, is one more element in the recruitment race. Contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars and XXL ambitions, Saudi Arabia is establishing itself as a new major player in the world of transfers.
Above all, the Saudi regime wants to be much more than a golden retirement home for stars at the end of their careers and to use football to gain influence. Like its neighbours, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates which, before it, had offered Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, among others, Saudi Arabia wants to integrate football into a very large-scale development plan. and to make sport a tool of its policy of influence, soft power.
“In the sports industry, everything is based on financial investment, explains to franceinfo: sport Raphaël Le Magoariec, doctoral student at the University of Tours, and co-author of the book ‘L’empire du Qatar. The new master of the game?’. So that these countries like Saudi Arabia which do not have a historical base in the sports industry can quickly gain influence in this world, it is by the economic way. And this way, they have it, and that’s how they become dominant very quickly.“Long governed by religious authorities, the Saudi country has decided to open up, under the leadership of King Salman and his influential son, Mohammed bin Salman, since 2015.
“This situation around football was unthinkable 20 years ago in Saudi Arabia.”
David Rigoulet-Roze, researcher at IRIS and specialist in the Arabian Peninsulaat franceinfo: sport
Always widely criticized for non-respect of human rights, the petro-monarchy is now accused of wanting to “whiten” its image on this subject through the prism of the big stars of world football. “We cannot deny that there is a sportwashing effect: from the moment when there are big stars who are solicited, it gives an aura and it relativizes a negative image.“, decrypts David Rigoulet-Roze, researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) and specialist in the Arabian Peninsula. Before immediately tempering: “But that is not the main objective, contrary to what is sometimes believed.”
“There is a real sport power strategy which fits more broadly into this soft power, that is to say to enhance the image of Saudi Arabia, to get it out of the caricature it has had for a long time, sometimes founded: the image of an archaic kingdom, centered on retrograde ideas, with an ultra-conservative religious culture.“
Another sports culture
The Saudi Pro League is made up of clubs all owned by the Saudi state, and financed by the sovereign investment fund, the FIP, one of the largest in the world, estimated at several hundred billion dollars. Four of the biggest local clubs – including that of Al-Nassr where Ronaldo plays, and Al-Ittihad, the new club of Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kanté – have thus been transformed into companies owned by the FIP to better be able to carry out these new investments.
“We are in the logic of the welfare state, set up since the years 1960-1970 in Saudi Arabiaanalyzes Raphaël Le Magoariec. The clubs appeared as a service offered by state power”, continues the doctoral student who sees in them an emanation of the power in place: “They are representations of the sovereign, like in Qatar, or in the United Arab Emirates”.
“There is a kind of fantasy seen in Europe, where the policies are not well understood. Sport enters the reason of state, which is ready to pay the price to win the case.” The specialist even equates these star recruitments with a display of force intended both to impress other countries and to flatter his own people. : “Having this relay that is the player as a source of power is like investing in a Rafale as an armament”. The symbolism and the message are as important here as the financial benefits. “Seen from elsewhere, it is difficult to be schematized in this way, because we live in a culture of economic profit through the big clubs.“, concludes on this subject Raphaël Le Magoariec.
Through its powerful clubs, now reinforced by football glories known throughout the world and brandished as banners, Saudi Arabia wants to go further than a simple strategy of buying foreign clubs, as they had done in a first time with English club Newcastle.
“With the recruitment of these footballers, it’s not just a facade, they want to create a Saudi League of starscontinues David Rigoulet-Roze. This gives a scale hitherto non-existent in Saudi Arabia to create emulation within its championship. It’s not just an idea of sports washing for the outside, it helps build a sense of national pride. With the idea that it is a question of making an Arab football league which is credible, not artificial.“
Vision 2030 and Olympic Games dreams
Apparently sudden, this wave of resounding transfers is part of a strategy developed for years now. This social plan and new economic model, called Vision 2030, was put in place by King Salman in 2016, a year after ascending the throne. Among its guidelines: the desire to no longer depend on its oil revenues and to increase its influence on the international scene. Sport, which has the right to a specific paragraph in Vision 2030, allows it to kill a multitude of birds with one stone.
The arrival of icons like Cristiano Ronaldo or Karim Benzema is seen as a lever to increase the Saudi Pro League’s commercial revenues from 120 to more than 500 million dollars a year. Tourism, of which Lionel Messi is the official ambassador, also relies on sport to grow its profits, from 3 to 10% of GDP. “Sports capital will be attractive in terms of tourist visibilitybelieves David Rigoulet-Roze. Since they go there, other people should want to go there.“
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Saudi Arabia is following in the footsteps of its Qatari neighbor, organizer of the last World Cup. “There is a logic of investing in major international institutions and major international events so that Saudi Arabia is a great international power that fits into the 21st century” summarizes David Rigoulet-Roze. Besides football, Saudi Arabia has already hosted the Dakar, organized major boxing matches and has become, through its oil company Aramco, one of the main sponsors of Formula 1 She is also now the patron saint of the professional golf circuit after the merger, on Tuesday, of her league, the LIV, born a year ago, with the American circuit, the PGA, after many months of conflict.
The ultimate dream remains an exhibition in mondovision, with the organization of the Olympic Games – it has already obtained, not without controversy, the awarding of the Asian Winter Games 2029 – or a Football World Cup in 2030 or in 2034 with Egypt and Greece. Until then, football has probably not finished seeing its glories join Saudi Arabia. “It’s a reason of state, and if for that, money is needed, they will put it“, announces Raphaël Le Magoariec.