Mohammed bin Salman, aka "MBS," has big ambitions – and big resources to satisfy them. De facto ruler of Saudi Arabia at the age of 37, alongside his aging father, King Salman, the Crown Prince wants to transform the Gulf's largest petro-monarchy, renowned for its Wahhabi conservatism, into a modern regional power capable of attracting the best foreign talent to diversify its economy. He has a plan to achieve this: "Vision 2030."
His latest weapon is the round ball. The transfer, made official on Tuesday, August 15, of Brazilian player and star of Paris Saint-Germain Neymar to Al-Hilal, one of Riyadh's clubs, enshrines MBS's strategy of making world-class sport one of the main instruments of Saudi "soft power."
Its conquest of football stars began earlier this year with the acquisition of five-time Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal by the Al-Nassr club, who are paying him the highest salary in football history: €200 million per season. Then it was the turn of Frenchman Karim Benzema of Real Madrid, another Ballon d'Or winner, who succumbed to the siren calls of Jeddah's star club, Al-Ittihad, on a contract worth €588 million. He was followed by another Frenchman, N'Golo Kanté, who also signed for three years in Jeddah. So far, only Messi has resisted the temptation of a €360 million cheque from Al-Ittihad, preferring instead the charms of Miami.
These football stars may be in their thirties, but they can still attract the world – and audiences – and offer an international veneer to the Saudi league, which lacked one just a few months ago. This offensive is causing a stir on planet football, where millions are commonly counted in tens, less often in hundreds. But MBS has deep pockets and no eye for expense. He has seen how Qatar has managed to carve out a worldwide reputation in football, and his ambition is to organize the World Cup in Saudi Arabia in 2034.
MBS' strategy is not limited to poaching champions of the game. Thanks to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the kingdom has also invested in Formula 1 and created a dissident international golf circuit. It is also interested in football clubs abroad: it has already bought Newcastle Utd.
What does MBS want from all this? Sport as a source of revenue and an instrument of soft power is part of his overall post-oil economic diversification plan. It's also a way of appealing to Saudi youth, in a country where two-thirds of the population is under 35. Unlike Qatar, football is a popular sport in Saudi Arabia, which already boasts an infrastructure of stadiums where, as a supreme privilege, women are admitted.
Of course, the ambitious crown prince is also seeking to whitewash an image seriously tainted by human rights abuses and the growing number of executions of death row inmates. It's hard to erase the macabre 2018 murder of regime-critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the premises of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But football players, including party boy Neymar, aren't the only ones who deem the kingdom palatable. Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron have renewed their acquaintance with MBS, who has also just been invited to the UK. Why should we expect more moral scruples from athletes than from politicians?
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.