Between June and September this year, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) spent a whopping $875.4 million poaching foreign players, well-informed sources revealed.
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 football stars.
Sources familiar with the matter recently revealed that MBS has personally intervened to include one of soccer’s biggest names in a multi-million-dollar contract.
The Saudi Pro League has already seen some remarkable signings in 2023, with Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante, Kalidou Koulibaly, and Ruben Neves joining clubs in the Middle East.
This huge spending on sports came as part of MBS's efforts to whitewash his bloody image and poor human rights record.
However, human rights organisations have long accused Saudi Arabia of using sport to whitewash its poor human rights record.
In this regard, Amnesty International warned that Saudi Arabia, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has embarked on a program of “sportswashing” to try to obscure Saudi Arabia’s extremely poor human rights record.
Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s Economics Affairs Programme Director, said” “Ronaldo’s big-money transfer to Al Nassr and Messi’s engagement by the Saudi authorities as a tourism ambassador are both part of Riyadh’s aggressive sportswashing program, with the authorities seeking to exploit the celebrity appeal of elite sport to deflect attention from the country’s appalling human rights record.”
“On a single day last year, the Saudi authorities executed 81 people – many after grossly unfair trials – while heavy prison sentences are being handed down to human rights defenders and women’s rights activists, and there’s still been no justice for Jamal Khashoggi’s terrible murder.
“Footballers like Ronaldo and Messi have huge profiles and we’d like to see them resisting being used as the famous faces of sportswashing, including by speaking out about human rights issues in both Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”
Saudi authorities have poured vast amounts of money into sporting ventures like Messi and Ronaldo's friendly match in the Kingdom.
Much like with Formula One and professional golf, the world's biggest oil exporter has in recent years leveraged its immense wealth to assert itself on the eSports stage, hosting glitzy conferences and snapping up established tournament organisers.
Last January, the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund launched the Savvy Gaming Group, which acquired top eSports firms ESL Gaming and FACEIT in deals reportedly worth a total of $1.5 billion.
Other media reports earlier revealed that the Riyadh-based Public Investment Fund acquired more than $3 billion worth of stock in three U.S. video-game makers during the fourth quarter, according to a regulatory filing. They include Activision Blizzard Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.
