NEW YORK – Saudi Arabia’s tab for using icons of western popular culture to enhance its stature and sway on the global stage could soon rise by another nine figures.
The kingdom is reportedly willing to pay Argentinian maestro and seven-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi, currently at Paris Saint-Germain, US$400 million (S$538 million) a year for the twilight of his career.
While a huge sum, even by football’s bloated standards, it is just the latest in a string of moves by the petrostate’s rulers, who are ploughing billions into sports, art and music.
Saudi Arabia hopes the spending, powered by excess revenue from being the world’s biggest crude exporter, will excite its burgeoning younger generation and supercharge its tourism industry.
Critics say the efforts are aimed at varnishing an international image battered by a brutal war in Yemen and murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Overseeing this so-called soft power play is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is simultaneously spending billions to build Saudi Arabia’s military capabilities, and pursuing a more opportunistic diplomatic track.
“It’s a complete reorientation of the kingdom,” says Kristin Smith Diwan, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “They want to convince people this is a welcoming place, not a threatening one.”
The magnitude of its spending has made Saudi Arabia impossible to ignore for the world’s political and business elite.
Its economy was one of the fastest growing in the Group of 20 in 2022, boosted by the highest oil prices in a decade, and it now boasts the world’s seventh-largest sovereign wealth fund.
Sports assets have been high on the shopping list. In late 2022, Portuguese football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo signed a contract with Al Nassr worth a reported US$200 million a year.
A little more than a year earlier, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIL) led a consortium that acquired English Premier League football club Newcastle United for more than £300 million (S$500 million).
Saudi Arabia is considering a joint bid to host the 2030 Fifa World Cup, having witnessed the recent success of the tournament in neighbouring Qatar.
The PIF has also reportedly earmarked billions of dollars to finance its LIV Golf tour, which has attracted stars including Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, and in 2022 considered a US$20 billion attempt to add Formula One to its growing portfolio of sports investments.
Elsewhere, venues in and around Jeddah and Riyadh have hosted mega-money boxing bouts featuring everyone from heavyweight champions Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk to up-and-coming fighters Jake Paul and Tommy Fury.
“Sport is essential to what Saudi is doing as it moves towards a world where it is less dependent on oil revenues,” according to Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School in Paris.
Saudi Arabia also wants tourism to account for 10 per cent of its gross domestic product in 2030, when it hopes to be attracting 100 million visitors a year. In 2022, the kingdom hosted about 16 million visitors, a Saudi Tourism Authority representative said in May.
To reach its target, it has been looking beyond professional sports. From an Andy Warhol exhibition, art biennale and electronic music concerts in the desert, to celebrity chef restaurants in Riyadh and partnerships with top culinary schools, it is spending heavily to create an entertainment and leisure industry from scratch.
But not everyone is buying the hype. Campaigners say Saudi Arabia is deflecting attention from a poor domestic record on free speech and other human rights.
“I’m glad these changes are happening, but it gives a false impression of our country,” said Lina Al-Hathloul, the Brussels-based head of monitoring and advocacy at human rights group ALQST.
She noted once this strategy to rehabilitate the Crown Prince’s reputation and woo western investors and visitors yields dividends, “violations we point out will no longer be effective”. BLOOMBERG
