Saudi Arabia will host the Asian Winter Games in 2029 in a city under construction, Neom, a 500 billion euro site. “Writing history with sport is essential for an authoritarian regime”, analysis Tuesday, October 4 on franceinfo Jean-Baptiste Guégan, specialist in the geopolitics of sport who describes a communication operation in addition to a “environmental and energy heresy”.
franceinfo: How important is this project for the Kingdom?
Jean-Baptiste Guegan : The Neom project is part of this desire to highlight Saudi Arabia, to show another face of the country. Whether it is the Asian Summer Games organized in 2034 or the Asian Winter Games in 2029, even if the latter are still a surprise. We have already had the example with Beijing 2022: these Games were organized with zero natural snow, only artificial snow. So why not go there? Even if it is an environmental and energy heresy.
500 billion dollars for the construction of Neom, this megalopolis on the shores of the Red Sea: isn’t that a money pit?
If you look at it from the angle of a demonstration that lasts a few weeks, yes, it is a money pit. The idea is to develop northern Saudi Arabia. In truth, it is a more global subject. These Asian Winter Games are only a pretext, an icing on the cake. This is what Saudi Arabia will seek to facilitate the financing of the Neom project. Today, Saudi Arabia cannot finance it. It needs foreign donors. So organizing such events serves to find these donors.
What can Saudi Arabia gain from such a project?
The same as Qatar and the Football World Cup: controversy, but also real exposure, for a long time. Sport is recurrent, it’s regular and it speaks to everyone. The idea is to master the narrative, the story that is made of you. Sport is for that. It will allow you to tell another story and write it yourself. This is exactly what Mohammad bin Salman is looking for. For an authoritarian regime, it’s not just important, it’s essential.
So is it above all a real communication operation?
Yes, and today it is the problem of major international sporting events. They are organized above all for reasons of soft power and international visibility. The real concern now is to make the international federations responsible so that they avoid giving this type of sporting event to this type of regime. Everyone is talking about the boycott in Qatar. The real problem is FIFA.