what’s behind the investments – Corriere.it

THEn business class, there is a golden throne. Upstairs, the king size bedrooms. And the silk tablecloths with flowers, the relaxation armchairs, the game tables, the massage area, the meeting rooms. What a glitz: You haven’t seen anything yet… explains a reporter from theArab Times, who has already traveled to us and marvels at our amazement. That video tweeted by Ogdon Ighalo, while with Al Hilal he goes away on a private Boeing, shows something normal in Saudi football. Ighalo looks like a kid at an amusement park! Instead, only at the entrance to the amusement park… . The Nigerian attacker, who once traveled with Cesena coaches, posted the images from the flying palace. Enchanting ourselves, enchanting us. But now that he gets used to it: the Boeing 747-400 of the Al Hilal, a reissue of the Air Force One of the US presidents, is worth the annual salary of a couple of his teammates. And a tiny little benefit. The players in Arabia (CR7 docet) have much more available: air-conditioned golf courses, starred chefs, Olympic swimming pools, international schools, private shops, spas with gold taps… Even their Filipino servants can count on reserved entrances to supermarkets. Today Riad – says the journalist – the best place to play and enjoy.

But what petrodollars: the hard currency the petrogol. It can be accumulated in quantity, expendable in the world, re-evaluated over time. At the Fair of the best (player) football, the Russians are out of the market and the Chinese are out of fashion, the safe haven of the Arabs is back. In the doc version of purest Arabia, the Saud. The guardians of Mecca, the dynasty that is about to celebrate the century of reign and in the meantime is celebrating by sanctifying its second religion: football. The Black Stone they keep in the Kaba as big as a football and the new cachet dispensers in Benzema and Kant, Koulibaly and Neves, have been the quickest to exploit the effect of Qatar 2022. Who, after all, if not the Saudi National League guardian of the Two Holy Mosques? For the first time outside of the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca – thinks Amyn Kableh, commentator of Al Jazira -, the last World Cup was the largest global pilgrimage in an Arab state. Nobody came here with attitudes of superiority. We felt the same. And a different image of the “new Arabs” has passed: we are no longer the wild Bedouins, the hypocritical rich people who drink alcohol, the fanatical drug addicts who cut off heads… .

New Arabs, Arabs against. But why all this investing? And why now? Don’t believe that the rise of Qatar – Emir Al Thani at PSG, but also the United States with Bin Zayed at Manchester City, or Bahrain which always dreams of buying a Milanese one – don’t believe that so many petrogols scare only us Europeans. The first to worry are the other Gulf ducks. For example, the Saudis. Who know how much national-popular hegemony, soft power it is said now, passes through football diplomacy (is there a better way to launch 1,700 km of Maldives-style coast? Or the brand new and futuristic city of sport, twice the size of Milan, a Las Vegas of football for 17 million tourists 40 km from Jeddah?). Who do not disdain sportswashing, washing one’s dirty hands, guaranteed by the curveiola popularity (what could be better to promote the Saudi renaissance of Mohammed Bin Salman and make people forget the repression of women and Lgbtq, the carnage in Yemen, the slavery of migrants , jail for dissidents, the Khashoggi murder?). That they no longer accept Qia (Qatar Investments Authority) to make the market with its 300 billion dollars and, after a cautious wait, they have decided to enter with their 500 billion Pif (Public Investment Fund). The arrival of the Saudis is the big news – confides a sports manager who has always known them -. But it is short-sighted to think that they enter football to regain their virginity: they know they are who they are and they don’t care to convince us otherwise. They know they have many women in leadership positions and that theirs will be a slow evolution. They also have a much more pragmatic view of religion than we believe: not an obstacle when it comes to doing business anywhere and with anyone. They are not interested in pleasing the Europeans. They know it takes time. At the moment, they are mainly addressing a certain Arab world.

The Saudi mantra is one: do like Qatar, better than Qatar. And since football is the continuation of politics by other means, here comes the eternal challenge of the Gulf between two Sunni countries that have taken more than twenty years to recognize each other in the borders, and for just as many have dreamed of monopolizing the Arabic-speaking ether (Al Jazira against Al Arabiya), now a sporting challenge. In Doha and in Riyadh, they always think the worst of each other: with these protecting bin Laden and accusing those of financing ISIS; with those who competed with them for US bases and submarine gas; with these imposing the embargo on those terrorists who are too friendly with the Turkish Erdogan, and those who feared Saudi incursions into Libya, in support of General Haftar… Two and a half years ago, under pressure from the Americans and Israelis, out of fear of Shiite threat from Iran, Qataris and Saudis have pretended to end their political hostilities. Opening for the sports ones: Riyadh has not yet digested that Doha snatched the 2019 Asian Cup from it (at home); Doha accuses Riad of pirating the images of a sports TV channel; Riyadh copies the Vision project in Doha that brought the World Cup to Qatar; Doha mocks Riad, which is a candidate for the 2030 World Cup and then withdrew so as not to offend the king of Morocco… This summer’s shopping is just the continuation of the infinite challenge with other means: In Riad, however, they don’t think like in others Gulf countries – says the manager -. And they don’t want to fail, like the Chinese with their championship. The big financial advisors, Boston Group like McKinsey, they’re all here. In five years, it will be normal to come on vacation to Arabia. And watch their stellar matches. They have a long term strategy. Once they were the nomads of the desert, now they are no longer: They have come to stay.