Saudi Arabia sports minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal defended his country’s rights to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup in an interview with BBC in Jeddah.
Many believe that Saudi has spent an enormous amount on sports in the last few years to ‘sportswash’ the Kingdom’s reputation over its human rights record but the Minister states that it is to improve the country’s economy as they aspire to promote tourism.
The Gulf Country has spent over £5b in sports since 2021 and has hosted some of the biggest events like F1, boxing, and most notably, the Saudi Pro League which attracted big names like Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and others.
Despite Saudia’s consistent efforts to make the country more sports-friendly, it has been believed by campaigners that all that is done just to take people’s minds away from long-standing issues like human rights, which the campaigners term “sportswashing”.
Prince Abdulaziz declared the accusations as “very shallow” saying that a huge population of the country is below the age of 30.
"Twenty million of our population are below the age of 30, so we need to get them engaged - we are playing our role to develop sports within the world and to be part of the international community" he said.
"We've showcased that - we've hosted more than 85 global events and we've delivered on the highest level. We want to attract the world through sports. Hopefully, by 2034, people will have an extraordinary World Cup,” the Minister said when asked if the country would be a suitable host for the 2034 World Cup.
Prince Abdulaziz then went on to defend his country’s attempts to sign the best players like Ronaldo saying that the English Premier League did the same too but no one said anything about it.
"I think the Premier League did that and that's how they started. So nobody questioned them when they did it," said Prince Abdulaziz, when asked if the spending was a threat to more established European leagues.