Saudi Arabia is set to become a big player in soccer when the new Superstar League kicks off this weekend. But behind the biggest transfer offensive in the history of sport there are even more groundbreaking plans: It’s about fear of rebellion, kickers as instruments of power – and religious propaganda.
There he is, the superstar. Befitting his status, he lands in Riyadh in a Concorde and is greeted by thousands of Al Hilal fans at the airport. We continue to the hotel in a Rolls-Royce. All of Saudi Arabia is upside down, the kingdom’s football league is shining in new splendor. August 1978, with Roberto Rivelino, a top foreign player – a former world champion who had inspired the whole planet in 1970 with Pelé – changes for the first time to the Saudi Pro League founded only two years earlier.
Attempts to adorn themselves with stars have been around for a long time. But back then nobody could have guessed what would happen 45 years later. Last Sunday, the league officially presented the armada of superstars who followed Rivelino’s call and, above all, the lure of money. “Salam aleikum,” said Sadio Mané, who recently switched from Bayern Munich to Cristiano Ronaldo club Al-Nassr: “I’m very happy to be here and wish all the players the best of luck, but in the end my team wants the title win.” Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard, who will take charge of Al-Ettifaq this season, said he was “proud just to be here”.
“The Saudi league has some wonderful players who all have skill, speed and strength,” added former Real Madrid star and new Al-Ittihad striker Karim Benzema, pointing to the overriding factor alongside the Women’s World Cup Football theme this summer: A new big player has appeared on the horizon that nobody in Europe really saw coming. And this player has huge resources and groundbreaking plans: All the new stars, Riyad Mahrez, Roberto Firmino, N’Golo Kanté and many more, they are part of an unprecedented transfer offensive in a league. An entire country.
Bin Salman’s Vision 2030
The clubs’ bulk purchases are based on the almost inexhaustible Public Investment Fund (PIF), a sovereign wealth fund in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Pro League is sponsored by Roshn. Saudi Arabia’s leading real estate development firm, wholly owned by the PIF and chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The 37-year-old “MBS” is one of the most powerful men on the planet and has also been the country’s prime minister since 2022. He is considered cunning, power-hungry, relentless – and clever.
As early as 2011, today’s Crown Prince, who as a child loved the strategy computer game “Age of Empires” and stories of Alexander the Great, was working on his own strategies with advisors from the fields of economics and law, which later resulted in Vision 2030. The plan to open up and modernize Saudi Arabia to the West and make the economy independent of oil in just two decades. This oil though, it’s the main reason the PIF is so bulging. It should be 600 billion euros. Recently, the country formed a new investment company, under the supervision of MBS, which focuses exclusively on sports companies.
The attack on football is part of Vision 2030. And for this, money is being pushed into bank accounts that make (almost) everyone weak. Financial fair play is of no interest in the kingdom, nobody can keep up with the millions in Saudi Arabia. Ronaldo is said to earn around 200 million euros a year. But all the new superstars are – intentionally or not – an instrument of power in bin Salman’s plans. More on that later.
rebellion and Islam
This is where fear plays a big role. The fear of losing power. Before the protest of the crowd. MBS closely monitored what happened in other countries during the Arab Spring. At first he wanted to limit football because Ultras had played an important role in the uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, and to promote individual sports.
Ultimately, however, the crown prince swung around when he decided to transform Saudi Arabia because he recognized the power of football. Although Vision 2030 primarily envisages ambitious steps to diversify the economy, the danger of rebellion should also be contained with the help of big football stars and sporting events and the young population (63 percent of the 32.2 million Saudis are 29 years old or younger) be calm and content. The national identity should be strengthened. Except for the good six million Saudi citizens who live in poverty and without any influence, because they don’t get anything from Ronaldo and Co. either.
But, as is so often the case in the region, it is also about religion. Benzema said in June that he decided to move to Saudi Arabia “because I’m a Muslim and it’s a Muslim country.” The Frenchman posted a video of himself performing the Islamic pilgrimage called Umrah at the Grand Mosque of Mecca on social media on Monday. With “Alhamdulillah” he praised his God in Arabic. These are sentences that warm the hearts of the Saudi royal family – and with which bin Salman and Co. are expanding their power.
Kanté and Mahrez also belong to the Muslim faith. Many other newcomers to the Saudi Pro League are people of color. And so experts and commentators in the Arab world recognize a connection. Omar Al-Ubaydli, a scholar from Bahrain, writes on the website of the Saudi broadcaster Al-Arabiyathe West does not understand “what role religion, culture and race play in attracting footballers to the Middle East”.
Saudi soft power in the Muslim world
The lavish transfer fees and salaries are certainly the most important reason for the change. Otherwise the footballers would not have moved in droves this summer. But the reasons are manifold and religion and the feeling of security and belonging should not be underestimated. Practicing Muslims have religious ties to Saudi Arabia, the guardian of Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina. And in the same way, they and people of color often do not feel welcome or at home in Europe because of Islamophobia, attacks on refugees or migrants, racist insults in football stadiums, the burning of the Koran or the rise of right-wing populist parties – even if they were born or grew up here.
Islam is an important ideological currency for the kingdom, effectively blending with its Realpolitik. When Saudi Arabia attracts many Muslim football stars to the league, when they show how they live and praise Islam in the kingdom, it is also about religious soft power in the Muslim world. The kingdom has been fighting for supremacy there for some time with religious propaganda activities against Iran and Turkey. Saudi Arabia sees itself encouraged in defining what Islam stands for in the 21st century, especially because the West is pointing its finger at human, women’s and LGBT rights, as seen for example at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. And to rebuke the secular West, as it has long done to non-Western countries. Riyadh not only wants to show that there is more than one way to dominate football, but also to organize society.
However, the Saudi path does not bode well for minorities unless they are soccer stars. True, the country wants to focus on its English-speaking tourism page also attract queer visitors – in the FAQ section the question “Are LGBT visitors welcome in Saudi Arabia?” responded with: “Everyone is welcome in Saudi Arabia and visitors are not asked to disclose such personal information.” But homosexual acts are punishable by lashes and, at most, the death penalty. Rainbow paraphernalia and One Love logos were confiscated by the Saudi government before and after the World Cup in Qatar.
81 executions in one day
Nevertheless, the kingdom has become more attractive to many Muslims since bin Salman introduced far-reaching social reforms that improved women’s professional and social opportunities, eliminated gender segregation and introduced an entertainment industry complete with cinemas, concerts and chic cafés based on the Western model. The football professionals and their families appreciate the high standard of living. Nevertheless: You can of course only enjoy the changes if you accept the harsh treatment of women, dissenters and freedom of expression and as long as you don’t say anything against the royal family and government and have enough money.
Geopolitics also plays a role in the Crown Prince’s Vision 2030 and is closely linked to this summer’s transfer offensive. If Saudi Arabia establishes itself as a big player in the football business, if the Saudi Pro League becomes one of the five best leagues in the world, then that will cement bin Salman’s already strong role in the Arab world.
His goal: The kingdom will rise to become a respected superpower in a new multipolar world order through football and other glittering sporting events (the Saudi expansion into boxing, Formula 1 and golf are also well known). War crimes in Yemen? 81 executions in one day, the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi? The brutal suppression of human rights, freedom of the press and political rights in your own country? All of that should be forgotten.
Sports washing, spectacle, World Cup 2034
This concept is called sports washing. Wash away your sins with dazzling soccer stars. Bin Salman and Co. reject this criticism from the West. And the plan works. More and more footballers seem to have no problem with the moral question of how far they want to be used for the purposes of the Saudi monarchy. Millions of people, not only in the Arab world, are looking forward to the spectacular season with Ronaldo, Benzema and Co.
The world football association FIFA is also happily involved, considering moving its own headquarters to Riyadh and thus legitimizing the power games by bin Salman and Co. The FIFA Club World Cup will take place in Jeddah this winter, and the royal family wants the World Cup 2034 to final icing on the cake to Saudi Arabia. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino wouldn’t mind, he is only too happy to surround himself with the country’s rulers. The kingdom is also said to have been involved in the failed foundation of the Super League, of course with the plan to establish a Saudi club there. Another part of an attack on the structures of football as Europe knows it.
This weekend kicks off the Saudi Pro League, which means so much more than football. It’s about power struggles, religion and supremacy in the world’s most popular sport. The millions of Saudis living in poverty, the dissidents in prisons, the oppressed women, the queers who have to hide themselves and their sexuality – but none of them can do much with Mohammed bin Salman’s plans and with Ronaldo, Benzema and Mané in their own country begin. They fight for their own existence.