Saudi Crown Prince places a calculated bet on foreign soccer club ownership
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Soccer has
long been a tightly controlled double-edged sword for Middle Eastern autocrats.
On the one
hand, autocrats sought to harness the sport’s popularity that evokes the kind
of passion in a soccer crazy part of the world that was traditionally reserved
for religion.
On the other
hand, soccer constituted one of the few arenas in which youth could vent
frustration and anger.
Soccer’s
disruptive potential was evident in 2011 when militant fans played a key role in the Arab popular
revolts that toppled
the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen.
With world
soccer body FIFA disregarding violations of its rules that ban government
interference in sports and restrict ownership of premier league clubs to one
per owner, governments sought to control the sport’s disruptive power by owning
several top clubs or ensuring that individuals with close ties to the regime
controlled them.
Fifteen
years later, autocratic perceptions of soccer’s double-edged sword may be
changing.
A confluence
of developments has, for the first time, prompted Middle Eastern autocrats to
contemplate foreign ownership of domestic clubs.
The
developments include economic diversification efforts that position sports as a
productive sector of the economy and make clubs a more attractive investment
target, social reforms that cater to youth aspirations for greater leisure and
entertainment opportunities, public health concerns in countries with high
rates of obesity and diabetes, and a need to position countries
internationally.
At the
forefront of these developments, Saudi Arabia could become the first Middle
Eastern autocracy to break the next taboo: foreign ownership of an as-yet-unidentified
Saudi Pro League club.
Speaking to The Athletic, sources said Saudi Arabia was in
discussions with a potential foreign buyer.
The
discussions reflect greater Saudi confidence in its ability to stymie soccer’s
disruptive qualities as well as foreign interest in Saudi sports, particularly
soccer, because of the kingdom’s massive investments with the acquisition of
top players, including Ronaldo, Neymar, and Karim Benzema, and significant
stakes in disciplines like golf, boxing, wrestling, and esports.
In addition,
Saudi Arabia has won hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup and multiple Asian
tournaments.
The
discussions highlight the degree to which Saudi Arabia has moved from the
notion of government ownership as the main way of preventing soccer from being
a venue to challenge the regime’s grip on power.
The kingdom
hopes that foreign ownership will help the Pro League compete with Europe’s top
divisions.
Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman indicated his increased confidence with his 2023
decision to act on the kingdom’s long-standing intention to privatise Saudi
soccer clubs.
Even so,
Saudi authorities initially trod carefully.
Authorities
identified privatisation as the way to ensure that sports,
with soccer at the forefront, become a productive sector of the economy and
that Saudi football teams would perform in upcoming tournaments in advance of
the 2034 World Cup.
In the
initial phases, privatisation meant farming out control of Saudi clubs to
various government entities and weaning them off government support by transferring the responsibility for financial oversight from the sports ministry to the Pro
League.
In a first
step towards privatisation, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public
Investment Fund (PIF), purchased in 2023 a 75 per cent stake in the kingdom’s
four biggest clubs —
Al Hilal, Al Ittihad, Al Nassr and Al Ahli – and funded the acquisition of some
of the world’s top players to the tune of US$1 billion.
The transfer
of club ownership marked the first step towards also privatising the
government-owned Pro League.
Subsequent
Saudi ‘privatisations’ handed control of clubs to local authorities.
These
‘privatisations’ included oil giant Aramco’s acquisition of Al Qadsia, Mr. Bin Salman’s science fiction-like
Neom city’s purchase of Al Suqoor, which it renamed Neom SC, the
transfer of Al Diriyah to the Diriyah Gate Development
Authority, and the handover of Al Ula FC to the Royal Commission for Al Ula.
Media reports suggested that Neom may reduce its
workforce and relocate more than 1,000 employees to Riyadh in an effort to
control costs and enhance oversight of the vast new city and other developments
in the kingdom’s northwest.
If past Arab
privatisation efforts are anything to go by, the government will want to ensure
that the buyers of Saudi clubs do not allow them to become protest venues.
The touted
foreign acquisition of a Saudi club would constitute the first genuine
privatisation and break with past formal and informal government controls,
designed to ensure that pitches did not spin out of control while serving as
release valves for pent-up frustration and anger.
The touting
is a far cry from Saudi attempts, prior to the rise of Mr. Bin Salman, to
develop a Saudi sports strategy that would emphasise individual rather than team
sports, which are
more prone to fostering protest.
Al Nassr
fans support their team in match against Egypt’s Zamalek at the King Fahd
Sports City in Taif, Saudi Arabia, in 2023
“In Saudi
Arabia, football was the only domain (before the rise of Mr. Bin Salman), in
which you can criticise royals. It was almost like it was allowed because a lot
of royals were presidents (of football clubs),” football author James Montague quoted Khalid Al-Jabri, a soccer
enthusiast and Saudi dissident, as saying.
“When you’re
criticising them for mismanaging a sport club, not mismanaging a country, that
was acceptable… There was a kind of normalisation, because that was a venting
mechanism. They can’t criticise the King or the Crown Prince but let them go at
other royals within the sport domain,” Mr. Al-Jabri added.
Among the incidents Mr. Al-Jabri likely had in mind was
the resignation in 2012s of Saudi Arabia Football Federation president Prince
Nawaf bin Feisal, who stepped down in the wake of the Arab revolts, due to
pressure from fans upset by the Saudi national team’s poor performance. Mr. Bin
Feisal was the first member of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family forced to step down
by public pressure.
Mr. Al-Jabri
probably also thought a Facebook page entitled Nasrawi Revolution that demanded
in 2013 the resignation of Faisal bin Turki, a burly nephew of the late King
Abdullah, as head of Al Nassr FC. A YouTube video captured Mr. Bin Turki
running off the soccer pitch after rudely shoving a security official aside.
With his
willingness to entertain the first-ever foreign acquisition of a Saudi club,
Mr. Bin Salman is betting that social liberalisation and the creation of a
Western-style entertainment industry, coupled with heavy-handed repression of
any expression of dissent, will reduce the risk of pitches becoming protest
venues.
For now,
it’s a bet that is likely to pay off.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an
Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and
podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.
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