Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) has been pushing to host prominent sports and entertainment events in an attempt to whitewash his poor human rights record. This includes lavishing funds on recruiting seven football stars.
Well-informed sources recently revealed that MBS sent a delegation to England in a final attempt to thrash out a possible £200m deal for Liverpool talisman, Mohamed Salah, also known as Mo Salah, after the Saudi £150 million ($189m) offer was rejected by Liverpool last week.
Al-Ittihad is looking for an alternative in case the deal to sign the Egypt star is not reached, the sources added.
Saudi Arabia has been long known as the Kingdom of silence and repression, where human rights activists and opponents are prosecuted, forcibly disappeared, arbitrary detained, and tortured in hell-like prisons.
Jamal Khashoggi's and Abdul Rahim Al-Hwaiti's murder was a turning point for the Saudi international reputation. The shadow cast by the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi has hung over MBS's image.
However, human rights organisations have long accused Saudi Arabia of using sport to whitewash its poor human rights record.
Sources familiar with the matter recently revealed that MBS seeks to hold the tennis championship for girls in Saudi Arabia next year, noting that MBS will take charge of all the participants' travel costs, including accommodation and flights.
Russian female tennis player Daria Kasatkina, who reached the semi-finals of the 2022 French Open and declared last year that she is gay, will be among the participants.
Experts believe that MBS's insane and lavish spending is a sign of the inferiority complex in his personality.
MBS is one of the world's most talked-about figures. Known for controversial policies, MBS has also made headlines for his extravagant lifestyle, including multi-million-dollar yachts, private jets, and luxurious palaces.
In 2017, MBS purchased Leonardo da Vinci's “Salvator Mundi” for $450.3 million.
He also owns an ultra-fancy 440-foot yacht that cost him a startling $494 million. The craft allegedly has two pools and a helipad, and was said to be an impulse purchase.
Some estimates of the Saudi royal family's wealth measure their net worth at $1.4 trillion, which is 16 times more than that of the British royal family, estimated at $88 billion. This figure includes the market capitalization of Saudi Aramco, the state oil and gas company, and its vast assets in fossil fuel reserves.
In this regard, Amnesty International warned that MBS has embarked on a program of “sportswashing” to try to obscure Saudi Arabia’s extremely poor human rights record.
Commenting on Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard's Saudi Arabia move, mnesty UK’s Economic Affairs Director Peter Frankental said:
“The gathering stampede from players and coaches to join Saudi Arabian football clubs on lucrative contracts is more evidence that Saudi sportswashing has gone into overdrive.
“Across multiple sports and multiple formats, the Saudi state is deploying huge sums to sportswash its heavily tarnished image and deflect attention from an appalling human rights record.
“Under Mohammed bin Salman, there’s been a frightening human rights crackdown, with peaceful activists jailed, a staggering 196 people executed last year alone, and there’s still been no justice after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
“The Saudi strategy on football appears to be to keep ratcheting up the big-name deals to create the momentum for a bid to host the World Cup in 2030.
“Fifa must apply stringent human rights risk assessments to any Saudi bid for 2030, but we also need to see FIFA, star signings and high-profile managers like Steven Gerrard speaking out about Saudi Arabia’s atrocious human rights record.”
