- Saudi Arabia has hosted a large number of sports competitions or exhibitions since the end of the year 2019.
- This softpower policy aims to change the image of the country internationally in order to attract a growing number of tourists.
- In France, voices are being raised for the organizers of sports competitions to stop accepting dollars Saudi Arabians by turning a blind eye to the human rights situation in the country.
After football, golf, boxing, we go and the best, Saudi Arabia recently offered two new events sports, the Saudi Tour cycling event and the Dakar , whose second Saudi edition kicked off this weekend. And the Middle Eastern country does not intend to stop there and now dreams of organizing a Formula 1 Grand Prix. Yet little known for its love of sport, the Saudi regime suddenly fell in love with everything that runs. , who hits or who rolls. Sudden awakening of a sporting flame? Not really.
At the end of the line, Malik Salemkour laughs. The president of the League for Human Rights has a completely different theory. “These petrodollar purchases of major sporting events are nothing more than a cover-up operation to hide that Saudi Arabia is a barbaric theocracy that resorts to the death penalty, where political opponents, women, homosexuals and foreign minorities are discriminated against, attacked or imprisoned, ”he denounces. On France Info, Antoine Madelin, director of plea to the International Federation for Human Rights denounced him “a media enterprise to restore the image of a bloodthirsty regime.”
Like his neighbor and Qatari enemy , at the forefront of sports diplomacy after the takeover of Paris Saint-Germain in the summer 648 and the organization of the World Cup in 2020, Saudi Arabia has chosen sport as an instrument of power at the international level. But unlike the small gas emirate, which uses football to extend its area of influence across the globe and expand its list of allies in the West in the face of neighbors as hostile as they are invading, the sporting coup of the ‘Saudi Arabia is perceived more by the regime in place as an economic lever.
Saudi Arabia wants to change its image
“This policy is part of the plan” Vision 2030 “set up by Mohamed Ben Salman – the crown prince – who tends to diversify the country’s economy because the oil windfall alone is no longer sufficient to satisfy a growing population. The country shoots 78% of its income from oil production, but this will eventually dry up, ”explains Clarence Rodriguez, French media correspondent in Riyadh for nearly 12 years. The idea is simple – develop the tourism economy via the media coverage of the various events, the realization is a little more cotton however. Because l Saudi Arabia does not arrive first in the list of countries you want to discover. “The war in Yemen, the political assassinations, the sweeping purges (people from the family of Ben Salman have been embastiled in the name of a campaign against corruption), describes Clarence Rodriguez. Not to mention the Khashoggi affair, this journalist assassinated at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2 2011 and of which the CIA suspects the Saudi regime of being the sponsor. “What makes him say, in comparison with the relative political success of softpower of Qatar, that” the liabilities are heavier for Saudi Arabia and that, therefore, the success of this policy of soft power is not guarantee. “ Checkbook policy Yet, so far, Saudi Arabia has not seemed to have much difficulty in convincing the organizers of sporting events to take a detour at home. See instead. Since December 2018 the ultra-conservative kingdom of the peninsula Arabian hosted the Ruiz-Joshua boxing match, the Italian Supercup, the Spanish Supercup, the Saudi international golf tournament, the Saudi Cycling Tour and therefore for the second time the Dakar, which started on Sunday of Jeddah. To do so, Crown Prince Mohamed Ben Salman, “MBS” for close friends, drew the weapon of massive conviction: dollars. A lot. “Due to the financial windfall linked to oil, they can afford any major sporting event”, notes the deputy Régis Juanico, author at the start 2019 from a tribune in the JDD to denounce the organization of the Dakar in the Saudi desert.
“No to the Dakar rally in Saudi Arabia”. Serious human rights violations, the Khashoggi affair, war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen … when the “diplomacy” of the checkbook takes precedence over the #sport. My platform in @ leJDD here: https://t.co/ 90 jQPwBtVM – Régis JUANICO (@Juanico) December 29, 2018 In addition to his criticisms of the Saudi autocratic regime “far removed from the values of sport”, the member of Mouvement Génération.s sees in this “checkbook policy” a more or less long-term danger for sport. “When they buy the Spanish or Italian Supercopa final at 90 million euros, the boxing gala at 78 million euros or the Dakar at 15 millions of euros per year, they create a speculative bubble on sports rights. No one can align, we are forming a sort of sports ghetto where there will be only a few ultra-rich or ultra-corrupt countries that can afford such events, ”he laments. . “So much money,” says the deputy for Loire, “obviously it’s tempting for lucrative private organizations looking for profitability and return on investment, but at what price? » Asked about this choice before the first edition of the Dakar in Saudi Arabia, David Castera, the new race boss at ASO (Amaury Sport Organization), puts forward a two-fold argument parties.
“The Dakar is not the first to go to Saudi Arabia, there are already a lot of people going there. There are a lot of companies that work there, that invest, a lot of sporting events. Formula E paved the way, there were tennis matches, soccer matches, wrestling matches, boxing matches. So the Dakar is in line with all these events. “ “We met to think , but we have had many guarantees from the country, we know that there is a desire for openness. Saudi Arabia wants to open up, so it uses these events to make itself known, to introduce the country, to attract tourists. It is development primarily through sport. “ 1211203929146564609 An ultimate argument that makes Clarence Rodriguez jump. “But let them say directly that they need the money and that they are going there to collect the big check!” Since when has a sports competition been organized to help indigenous populations? It is even more serious to say that, protests this specialist of the Sunni kingdom. It reflects a lack of knowledge of the country. Don’t they know that one executes with a vengeance? On the contrary to participate in the opening of the country, they endorse the policy of repression put in place by MBS. » An observation shared by the president of the League of Human Rights. “ASO went to bed in front of the regime’s money. It is between them and their conscience. Is the money worth the silence and the compromise? Asks Malik Salemkour. And then the argument of opening up the regime does not hold water for a second. The fundamental elements of the regime remain the same, there is no democratic openness, no freedom of the press, no freedom of expression for political opponents, especially on social networks, women continue to be treated as sub-human beings, the living conditions in the prisons are unworthy, the military controls are particularly strong. “ EU to the rescue?
For his part, Régis Juanico believes more in restrictive political action than in a hypothetical awakening of consciousness on the part of the organizers of sporting events. For him, the European Union has a role to play in this. “We need to be able to fight against that, we need a strong political power capable of imposing extremely precise specifications on international sports federations on the conditions under which we organize major international sporting events. » Difficult to imagine, however, when we see the way in which the French government (but it is not the only one), deals with Saudi Arabia. “The problem, agrees Clarence Rodriguez, is that some countries, including France, put a veil on these issues. They pretend not to see the truth. They think they’re going to land big contracts if they don’t open their mouths, but that’s peanut compared to Americans. »And athletes. 