International media revealed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) efforts to sanitize his image through business dealings, participation in sporting events, and team sponsorships—all at the expense of the billions of dollars the Saudi people fritter away with no checks and balances. Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Saudi Arabia’s Finance Minister, stated that this is taking place during a period when the country’s budget is behind.
The Angulus Times published an article entitled “With oil funds and Formula One, Saudi Arabia steamrolls its way onto sports’ hallowed grounds.”
The published article revealed MBS’s manipulation of the Kingdom’s oil resources and control over the nation’s oil funds in an attempt to repair his damaged reputation from his authoritarian and human rights violating political and human rights practices.
The Saudi Crown Prince’s regime is attempting to impose itself financially on the world sports scene, according to the newspaper. It is also abusing Aramco’s funds, which ought to have been used to benefit the people of Saudi Arabia by creating jobs and reducing the country’s growing poverty rate, and it is manipulating the funds of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is meant to work toward diversifying the Saudi economy rather than having it rely solely on oil. Instead, he is squandering these funds on unprofitable and poorly thought-out investments.
It is noteworthy that, in an unusual move for the world of sports and football, the Saudi Crown Prince lavished millions of dollars on Saudi clubs to enable them to acquire international star football players in unprecedented numbers. In addition, he overspent and applied all the pressure necessary to secure the right to host the 2034 World Cup. This even had a negative effect on the world boxing, golf, and tennis championships, as he used all of his financial clout to try to buy the matches and hold them in Saudi Arabia, but he fell short of his promises made in Vision 2030 to diversify the economy, help Saudi citizens, and realize his dreams.
The newspaper pointed out that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had ventured through the Saudi oil giant Aramco to buy the right to host the car race, outperforming the Emirates and Qatar, two years after the killing and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country’s consulate in Istanbul, and it is not difficult for Aramco to buy the racing team with its cars as long as the country is ruled by a reckless young man who has no vision and does not think about the future of generations, he has been obsessed with sports and electronic games since his childhood.
The Saudi Crown Prince’s extravagant sports investments are pathetic attempts to salvage his image. Contrary to what his supporters in the media claim, he has not been able to bring significant foreign investment to Saudi Arabia; in fact, in his eighth year, he has failed to draw in foreign capital, despite all the incentives he presented to potential investors. The concrete structures in the NEOM City project are testament to Bin Salman’s failure, as well as the failure of the vision he extolled when he took the throne following his overthrow of Mohammed bin Nayef.
MBS could easily have his present and future destroyed by his track record of economic collapse, political despotism, and violations of human rights; sadly, he operates under the tenet that “I will not die alone.” In addition to destroying societal reality, altering Saudi identity, and going against national customs, he insists on undermining the nation’s economy, wasting its resources, and wasting future generations.
