Newcastle United, LIV Golf, Boxing's New Circuit: How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport

It takes a particular kind of ambition to buy a football club that last won the league in 1927, pump £400 million into the transfer market, and expect the world to forget about the dismemberment of a journalist in your consulate. Yet here we are, in April 2026, watching Newcastle United chase a Champions League spot while Jamal Khashoggi's killers walk free in Riyadh. One might call it audacious. History will likely call it something else.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — MBS to the sportswashing cognoscenti — has spent an estimated $15 billion on sport since 2021. He bought Newcastle United for £305 million through Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. He launched LIV Golf with signing bonuses that made Tiger Woods pause and Phil Mickelson genuflect. He lured Cristiano Ronaldo to the Saudi Pro League for $200 million a year, then added Karim Benzema, N'Golo Kanté, and a dozen others. He created a boxing league, Riyadh Season, that now hosts more world title fights than Las Vegas. Formula One races in Jeddah. The 2034 FIFA World Cup is coming to Saudi Arabia, awarded by FIFA in October 2024 in what might generously be called a 'competitive bid process.'

The strategy has a name, coined by human rights groups who have watched this playbook deployed before: sportswashing. The premise is simple. Authoritarian regimes buy athletes, teams, and tournaments to launder their reputations, distract from abuses, and project power. It worked for Mussolini in 1934. It worked for the Soviet Union in 1980. It worked, after a fashion, for Beijing in 2008 and Qatar in 2022.

But something curious is happening this time. The money is working. The reputation isn't following.

The Precedent We Keep Invoking

Sportswashing is not, of course, without precedent. The term was popularised after Russia's 2014 Sochi Olympics, which cost $51 billion and temporarily obscured Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea. Qatar's 2022 FIFA World Cup, which killed an estimated 6,500 migrant workers during construction, nonetheless delivered the spectacle FIFA promised and the global audience Doha wanted. Western governments complained. Western fans attended. The tournament proceeded.

The difference this time is scale and persistence. Qatar hosted a single World Cup. Russia hosted Olympics and a World Cup, then invaded Ukraine and lost access to international sport entirely. Saudi Arabia is attempting something more comprehensive: the wholesale purchase of multiple sports, on multiple continents, as a permanent feature of Vision 2030 — MBS's economic diversification plan.

According to a February 2026 report by Grant Liberty, a sports finance consultancy, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund now owns or sponsors assets in 11 different sports. The Saudi Pro League spent $957 million on player transfers in summer 2023 alone — more than the English Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A combined that window. LIV Golf, funded entirely by PIF, offered $800 million in signing bonuses to lure players from the PGA Tour, triggering a civil war in professional golf that ended with a merger negotiation in June 2023 that remains unresolved in April 2026.

The spending has produced results. Cristiano Ronaldo's arrival in Riyadh in January 2023 generated 1.4 billion social media impressions in his first week, according to Nielsen Sports. Newcastle United's 2022–23 season, their first under Saudi ownership, saw match attendance rise 11% and merchandise sales triple. The 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix drew 275,000 spectators. Riyadh Season boxing events, which began in 2019, now host more world title fights annually than Las Vegas or London.

And yet: polling data suggests the reputation laundering has stalled. An Ipsos survey conducted in March 2026 across the UK, US, Germany, and France found that 61% of respondents viewed Saudi Arabia's sports investments as 'an attempt to distract from human rights abuses.' That figure is unchanged from June 2022, before Newcastle's spending spree, before Ronaldo's move, before the World Cup bid. Saudi Arabia has bought the athletes. It has not bought the narrative.

The Argument They Haven't Made

There is, one must concede, a counterargument. Saudi Arabia's defenders — and it has acquired several, mostly in the employ of clubs, leagues, and athletes on the Saudi payroll — argue that engagement beats isolation. Sport, they say, opens societies. The 2034 World Cup will accelerate reforms: women's rights, labour protections, freedom of expression. This is the argument FIFA made when awarding the tournament. It is the argument Newcastle United fans repeat when pressed about their club's ownership. It is not, to be clear, an argument supported by recent Saudi history.

The sportswashing strategy rests on a calculation: that spectacle overwhelms scrutiny. MBS appears to believe that if Saudi Arabia hosts enough world title fights, buys enough European football clubs, and pays enough athletes enough money, the West will eventually shrug and move on. He may be half-right. Western governments have indeed moved on — or at least stopped pretending to care. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer attended the Saudi Pro League's season opener in August 2025. President Biden's successor has called MBS 'a key partner.' The United States approved $32 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia between 2021 and 2025.

But the public has not moved on. Fan groups across Europe have protested Saudi ownership. Amnesty International launched a 'Red Card Saudi Arabia' campaign in November 2024 targeting the 2034 World Cup. PGA Tour players who resisted LIV Golf's offers became heroes to a cohort that normally cares little about professional golf. When Newcastle United played in the Champions League in 2024, away supporters unfurled banners reading 'Khashoggi: Never Forgotten.' This is not how sportswashing is supposed to work.

The Athletes Who Said Yes, and the Price

The athletes themselves face a calculation: take the money, or take the moral high ground. Most have taken the money. Cristiano Ronaldo signed with Al Nassr in January 2023 for a reported $200 million per year. Karim Benzema joined Al-Ittihad for $100 million. N'Golo Kanté, formerly of Chelsea, signed with Al-Ittihad for $25 million annually. Neymar, once of Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, joined Al-Hilal in August 2023 for $300 million over two years.

In golf, the list of LIV defectors includes Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, and Sergio García. Each signed for eight- or nine-figure sums. Each faced immediate backlash. Mickelson, who called the Saudis 'scary motherfuckers' in a February 2022 interview before signing anyway, became the face of the controversy. Tiger Woods, offered $700–800 million to join LIV, declined. Rory McIlroy, the PGA Tour's most vocal defender, called LIV 'a money grab' and its participants 'hypocrites.'

The backlash has had consequences. Mickelson lost sponsorship deals with Amstel Light, KPMG, and Workday within weeks of joining LIV. A February 2026 Sportspro survey found that LIV golfers' average sponsorship value dropped 37% compared to PGA Tour equivalents. Newcastle United players report online abuse referencing Khashoggi after every match. Ronaldo's Instagram posts about his Saudi contract routinely attract thousands of comments about human rights abuses.

And yet the money keeps flowing, and athletes keep saying yes. One begins to suspect that the reputational cost, for the athletes, is bearable. For Saudi Arabia, the calculation is different. Sportswashing was supposed to soften the regime's image. Instead, it has kept human rights abuses in the headlines.

The Institutions That Sold Access

If athletes are complicit, sports institutions are co-conspirators. FIFA awarded Saudi Arabia the 2034 World Cup in a process so opaque that Norway's football federation called it 'flawed and inconsistent.' Saudi Arabia was the only bidder. FIFA's evaluation report, published in November 2024, gave Saudi Arabia a higher governance score than Germany, despite the latter having an independent judiciary and the former executing dissidents.

The PGA Tour, after two years of denouncing LIV Golf as a threat to the sport's integrity, announced a merger framework in June 2023. The deal would fold LIV into a new commercial entity, PGA Tour Enterprises, with the Saudi Public Investment Fund as a minority investor. As of April 2026, the deal remains unsigned, blocked by regulatory scrutiny and player revolt. But the fact that it was proposed at all tells you everything you need to know about the PGA Tour's principles.

Formula One has raced in Saudi Arabia since 2021, despite the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and the imprisonment of women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who campaigned for the right to drive — the very right F1's presence in Saudi Arabia is supposed to symbolise. When questioned in 2023, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said the sport 'can be a force for good.' He did not elaborate on what good, specifically, F1 had produced. Al-Hathloul remains under a travel ban.

What the Data Actually Shows

So has it worked? Has $15 billion purchased legitimacy? The evidence is mixed, and the mix leans unfavourable. Saudi Arabia's global favourability rating, tracked by Pew Research Center, stood at 22% across Western democracies in 2021, before the sports spending began. In March 2026, it stood at 24% — a statistically insignificant change. Among 18-to-34-year-olds, the target demographic for Vision 2030, favourability dropped from 28% to 25% over the same period.

The Ipsos data referenced earlier found that awareness of Saudi human rights abuses increased among sports fans between 2022 and 2026 — precisely the period of maximum sports investment. In other words: the more Saudi Arabia bought sport, the more people learned why that was a problem. Sportswashing, in this case, has functioned as sport-spotlighting.

This outcome is not unprecedented. Russia's Sochi Olympics temporarily boosted Vladimir Putin's domestic approval but did little to improve Russia's international standing; within months, the annexation of Crimea dominated the narrative. Qatar's World Cup was watched by 5 billion people, yet Qatar remains synonymous with migrant labour deaths and purchased influence. Beijing's 2008 Olympics were technically flawless, yet China's global reputation in the West has deteriorated steadily since.

What this suggests is that sportswashing, in the 21st century, faces diminishing returns. The strategy worked better when information moved slowly and civil society was less organised. It does not work well in an era of instantaneous documentation, where every Saudi-sponsored event attracts protests, investigative journalism, and viral social media campaigns highlighting the abuses the event is meant to obscure.

The Policy Implications No One Wants to Discuss

If sportswashing doesn't work — or at least, doesn't work as well as Saudi Arabia hoped — why does it continue? The answer is that it works well enough for the institutions selling access. FIFA collected $300 million from Saudi Arabia for 2034 hosting rights. The PGA Tour's proposed deal with PIF would inject $1 billion in capital. Newcastle United's owners spent £400 million but increased the club's valuation to £1.2 billion. The English Premier League collected £100 million in Saudi broadcast rights in 2024.

In other words: sportswashing may not soften Saudi Arabia's reputation, but it enriches everyone who facilitates it. That is sufficient incentive for the facilitators. The policy question, then, is whether democratic governments should permit it. Britain's Labour government commissioned a review of Saudi ownership of Newcastle United in 2024; the review concluded the ownership passed all financial tests and raised 'concerns' but no red flags. The review has not been published.

The United States faces a similar question. The Treasury Department has the authority to block investments by foreign sovereign wealth funds on national security grounds. It has not used that authority to scrutinise PIF's sports investments, despite PIF being controlled directly by MBS, the man U.S. intelligence concluded ordered Khashoggi's murder. Instead, the Biden administration and its successor have treated Saudi Arabia as a partner in managing oil prices and containing Iran.

One begins to suspect that sportswashing succeeds not by changing public opinion, but by revealing that public opinion doesn't matter. Governments know what Saudi Arabia is. Institutions know. Fans know. Yet the tournaments proceed, the transfers are approved, and the cheques clear. The lesson MBS appears to have drawn is not that sportswashing works, but that nothing else is required. He can buy the sport and ignore the criticism. Both are true at the same time.

What History Suggests Will Happen Next

Sportswashing campaigns typically end in one of two ways. The first: the regime softens, and the sports investment becomes retroactively justified. South Korea hosted the Olympics in 1988 while still an authoritarian state; by the time it hosted the World Cup in 2002, it was a democracy. The optimists cite this trajectory and suggest Saudi Arabia might follow it.

The second outcome: the regime hardens, the abuses multiply, and the sports investment becomes a historical embarrassment. Germany hosted the Olympics in 1936. The IOC called it a triumph. History remembers it as the Games that legitimised fascism. Russia hosted the Sochi Olympics in 2014, then invaded Ukraine; the IOC now bans the Russian flag from competition. Qatar hosted the World Cup in 2022; the 6,500 dead migrant workers are the lasting legacy.

Which trajectory is Saudi Arabia on? The data suggests the second. Executions are rising. Dissidents are receiving longer sentences. The reforms MBS promised — women's freedoms, labour protections, political liberalisation — have stalled or reversed. Vision 2030 is proceeding, but the vision does not include democracy, independent courts, or freedom of expression. It includes football, golf, and Formula One.

The 2034 World Cup will proceed. Saudi Arabia will spend $10 billion on stadiums, infrastructure, and spectacle. Millions will watch. Sponsors will pay. And every single match will be accompanied by protests, op-eds, and social media campaigns reminding the world of the journalists imprisoned, the activists executed, and the migrant workers who built the stadiums. This is not a successful sportswashing campaign. It is a $15 billion admission that legitimacy cannot be bought, only borrowed — and the interest rate keeps rising.

One is tempted to admire the persistence. But history will not remember this as ambition. It will remember it as the moment sport sold itself to an autocracy, and both sides lost.