NEW REPORT: SAUDI ARABIA’S GRIP ON WORLD SPORT

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After months of work, Play The Game released their new report on Saudi Arabia’s sports strategy. 

They uncov­ered 910 Sau­di spon­sor­ships in sport and mapped 1,412 key posi­tions with­in 207 Sau­di enti­ties. The report paints a clear pic­ture of the intri­cate net­work dri­ving Sau­di Arabia’s rapid­ly expand­ing influ­ence in inter­na­tion­al sport.

 

What the report con­tains

  • Insight­ful sto­ries on key fig­ures and state enti­ties shap­ing Sau­di Arabia’s sports ambi­tions, includ­ing their role in rela­tion to the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
  • Exam­ples of spon­sor­ships, strate­gic alliances, and part­ner­ships illus­trat­ing the Kingdom’s far-reach­ing influ­ence.
  • Exam­ples of con­flicts of inter­est and gov­er­nance chal­lenges, includ­ing impli­ca­tions relat­ed to the 2034 FIFA World Cup. 

Why this mat­ters

Backed by bil­lions of dol­lars and a rapid­ly expand­ing net­work of spon­sor­ships, part­ner­ships, and strate­gic invest­ments, the King­dom has reshaped the sports world. But this is not just about ele­vat­ing the King­dom’s pres­ence in sport—it is part of a care­ful­ly craft­ed strat­e­gy to trans­form its glob­al image and use sport as a pow­er­ful tool of geopo­lit­i­cal influ­ence.
Beneath the glit­ter­ing sur­face of major tour­na­ments, spon­sor­ships, and celebri­ty endorse­ments lies a dark­er real­i­ty — severe human rights atroc­i­ties, oppres­sion, repres­sion, and, in some cas­es, death.
Sau­di Arabia’s sports strat­e­gy seeks to divert from these real­i­ties, reveal­ing the ten­sion between the ideals of sport and the real­i­ties of pow­er, mon­ey, and pol­i­tics. Under­stand­ing this strat­e­gy is key to grasp­ing what’s tru­ly at stake.

 

A Call to Action

This report is just the begin­ning. Along­side the report, Play The Game made the full dataset pub­licly avail­able. Jour­nal­ists, aca­d­e­mics, researchers, and stake­hold­ers are invit­ed to dive deep­er, uncov­er untold sto­ries, and pur­sue fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tions. Help shine a light on one of the most con­se­quen­tial sports sto­ries of our time!
Click on the link below to read the orig­i­nal arti­cle and down­load the report and the dataset:

Sau­di Arabia’s grip on world sport