It seems almost certain that, in December 2024, FIFA will confirm the award of the rights to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup to The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Assuming that this happens, it will be a major milestone in the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 programme and its ambitious strategy to be a, if not, the world leader in hosting major sporting events. While delivering the FIFA World Cup will be a massive undertaking, the Kingdom’s ambitions do not end there. It is widely speculated that the Kingdom has aspirations to host a Summer Olympic Games, possibly as soon as 2040. In between all manner of major sporting events will be held in the Kingdom from the 2025 e-Sports Olympics to the annual WTA Tennis Finals from November 2024 onwards and even, most audaciously, the Asian Winter Games when the event unfolds in Trojena in 2029. The ‘Riyadh Season’ sees the Kingdom hosting perhaps the most important series of boxing events in the world and the Saudi Pro-league attendance and viewership continues to grow.1,2 Meanwhile, mass participation in grass-roots sport, including women’s and youth sport, is only increasing.3
So far, so good for the dynamic Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. However, Saudi is not alone in having had major ambitions in his respect. In 2011, around a year before becoming the country’s leader, Xi Jinping outlined a vision to turn China from a footballing minnow to a soccer superpower. He set his sights on the sport’s highest prize of all and outlined a three-stage plan for the men’s national team: to qualify for another World Cup, to host a World Cup, and to win a World Cup. He also aimed for the Chinese Super League (CSL) to rival the biggest football leagues in Europe in terms of money spent. In the boom season of 2015-16, US$451 million was spent on transfers, taking the CSL temporarily into the top five spending football leagues in the world.
This article will not dwell on what went wrong for China which has been well documented elsewhere.4 But I would like to pick out one aspect: that of sports integrity.5 For, as we all know, with great money in sport also comes the seedy downside of match-fixing, bribery, and corruption. And as prize money rises (the aforementioned WTA Finals in KSA will feature the largest prize money ever in women’s tennis6), so too come challenges of doping and competition manipulation (for example, rigging the draw in a knock-out competition to favour one team/player or one side of the bracket and so on).
China's Experiences
One of the phenomena China faced with its own sporting aspirations was its lack of understanding about, and planning for, the almost inevitable downsides of massive investments into sport. For example, just last month, the Chinese Football Association (FA) imposed life bans on 38 football players and five club officials after a two-year investigation into match-fixing and gambling, as part of a crackdown on corruption in one of China’s most popular sports. The investigation found that 120 matches had been fixed, with 41 football clubs involved, amounting to one of the biggest match-fixing cases ever.7 Such cases have not been exclusive to football, with a major match-fixing ring of Chinese snooker players exposed in 2023.8 Personal experiences would suggest that these cases will be just the tip of an iceberg of integrity problems in China which will have gone undetected or unreported.
The business side of sport has not fared much better, with numerous reported cases of bribery and corruption emerging. For example, in 2022, China launched a major anti-corruption crackdown on Chinese football that has seen more than a dozen officials of the Chinese FA investigated or charged for corruption including the former national Team Coach, Li Tie.9
While China is belatedly taking steps to rectify these issues,10 there can be little doubt that the reputation and value of sport, particularly football, in China has been severely dented. Despite massive investment, Xi Jinping’s 2011 vision for world football domination seems as distant now as it was then. Given the inevitable scrutiny that comes with hosting world events and many in the world press looking for opportunities to pounce, Saudi Arabia would do well to draw lessons from these experiences as its own sports programme ramps up.
What Challenges Will Saudi Arabia Face?
China and Saudi Arabia are clearly very different countries with different cultures and practices. That said, integrity challenges in sport are truly global. The Kingdom is highly likely to face the same integrity challenges as China and, indeed, the rest of the world. It is important to stress that these challenges are likely to be global forces impacting the Kingdom, rather than any significant domestic threat (KSA ranking in the top third globally in the Corruption Perceptions Index11). Indeed, there have already been early signs of this. This summer the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia (JCSA) confirmed that the winning horse, Maximum Security, of the inaugural Saudi Cup horse race in 2020 had been doped by American trainer Jason Servis.12 He and 26 others, including veterinarians, were subsequently arrested in the U.S. and some are now serving prison time.13 Once matters in the USA had been dealt with by the courts, earlier this year the Independent Stewards Committee considered several JCSA charges against Servis of doping the horse and associated corrupt practices in the Saudi Cup. Following the successful prosecution, the horse was disqualified. The JCSA then reordered the results and 2nd placed mare Midnight Bisou was declared the winner. The withheld prize money of more than $18M is being redistributed to the placing horses. This has proven to be the biggest ever such case (by prize money) in world horse racing and it was unfortunate that it happened at the first-ever Saudi Cup. The JCSA handled the matter well, taking appropriate expert advice. However, it is worth again noting that, while no Saudis nor indeed the horse’s owners were involved, it was the Saudi Cup itself that suffered the reputational impact. Overall, the case has had a notable but manageable impact on the reputation of sport in the Kingdom.14 Although faultless, Saudi Arabia can ill afford too many such cases.
Doping aside, one of the other challenges facing the whole Arab world (and indeed China) is a lack of intuitive understanding of match-fixing given that mass market, app-based sports betting is such an unfamiliar concept. For example, I doubt it is well understood in the Kingdom that a wide range of betting contingencies are being offered to global betting markets on football matches as low down the pyramid as the Saudi 2nd Division.15 This allows anyone, anywhere in the world16 to bet via an app on various outcomes in this low level of football in the Kingdom. And it is in these lower levels of sports where most issues occur.
Back in early 2022, I led a task force in Egypt to assist the authorities in understanding that the country had become the No. 1 match-fixing destination in world tennis.17 Organized Crime Groups and foreign players were using the low-level and almost back-to-back International Tennis Federation events held in Sharm El Sheikh to conduct match-fixing on an industrial scale. Sadly, some promising Egyptian players had been drawn into this activity with devastating results for the talent pool of the Egyptian Tennis Federation.18 Egypt as an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member had little collective understanding then of the scale of ‘off-shore’ betting on sport in the country, notably football and tennis. And with this betting, comes integrity challenges, as night follows day. When I was there, Egypt had no national sports integrity programme, no intelligence programme monitoring global betting markets, no special police unit, no law prohibiting match-fixing, and no courts with experience in dealing with these matters. One suspects that the organised crime ring behind Sharm El Sheikh match fixing knew well the risk-free environment in Egypt. While progress has perhaps been made,19 this remains an area of vulnerability for the whole region.
Finally, safeguarding international athletes’ rights will be a challenge for Saudi Arabia. These rights are enshrined by the IOC 20, 21 and these cover issues such as prevention of harm, equality, inclusion, discrimination, and athletes’ rights. As we saw from the 2022 Qatar World Cup,22 Saudi Arabia can expect to be tested when fans and international athletes visit the Kingdom for high-profile events and competitions. Again, just this month and even after recent positive announcements mentioned below, there are more examples of high-profile advocating athletes targeting Saudi Arabia, this time by demanding that FIFA does not accept sponsorship from Saudi Aramco.23 This issue is unlikely to just go away.
So What Can Saudi Arabia Do?
The good news is that Saudi Arabia has the time and opportunity to learn from the missteps in China, Egypt, Qatar, and elsewhere touched on above. Building on its experiences handling the Saudi Cup and other matters, it would do well to benchmark itself against gold-standard national programmes such as that of Australia. Australia has a national sports integrity statutory body covering doping, match-fixing, and safeguarding for both domestic and international sporting events hosted in the country.24 It has strong laws, and highly experienced and pro-active police and courts. It is leading the world in landmark prosecutions to protect sport from bad actors.25 A gap analysis of existing Saudi programmes against such a national benchmark would be instructive.
Furthermore, the Kingdom could be the first Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state to sign26 and then implement the “Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions” (the Macolin Convention) which is a multilateral treaty that aims to prevent, detect, and punish match-fixing in sport. It is supported by an implementation tool kit, for example, ‘boilerplate’ laws that can be adjusted and enacted to provide a legal framework at the national level.27 Such an initiative would also help the Kingdom give substance to its G20 commitment to tackling corruption in sport.28
Recent welcome statements by Hammad Albalawi, head of Saudi Arabia's 2034 World Cup bid unit, that the Kingdom welcomes all visitors, show the continued liberalization of the country.29 This is only likely to continue with, for example, steadfast advocacy on equality in sport from Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud in her role as Saudi IOC member.30 That all said, it would be a major step in removing the potential for tensions if the Kingdom were to enshrine the above IOC standards in some form of high-profile, public commitment to visiting athletes, officials, and fans supported by updated publicly available regulations and a high-profile PR campaign highlighting the progress that has been made, for example in women’s sport in the Kingdom.
Upgrading all of this along with supporting education and awareness programmes should be a national priority in Saudi Arabia as a matter of some urgency. Progress is being made but there is also a need to be open and transparent on matters of integrity in sport. Sponsors, athletes, fans, and the media will be watching closely, as will those bad actors who might be tempted to try and subvert sport in the Kingdom for their own gain. Saudi Arabia is well set to achieve its ambitious vision in sport; now it needs to protect that investment and secure its reputation.
About the Author. Jonny Gray is Senior Managing Director at Ankura and co-lead of its global sports advisory practice. He is a retained advisor to the Council of Europe on National Sports Integrity Platforms. Previously he was the founding CEO of The International Tennis Integrity Agency transforming the integrity of professional tennis worldwide, working globally with national and international stakeholders including the IOC, FIFA, the UNODC and INTERPOL.
[1] Saudi Arabia’s takeover of world sport: Football, golf, boxing and now tennis? - The Athletic
[2] New era for Saudi Pro League sees unprecedented growth, global fan engagement
[3] Transforming women’s sports in Saudi Arabia | Arab News
[4] Xi Jinping wanted China to be a global soccer power. What went wrong? | CNN
[5] For the purposes of this article, defined as doping, match-fixing, competition manipulation and safeguarding of participants.
[6] WTA Finals signs record deal with Saudi Arabia | The Independent
[7] China bans 43 soccer players and officials for life for match-fixing | CNN
[8] Snooker match-fixing scandal: Liang Wenbo and Li Hang handed lifetime bans - BBC Sport
[9] Chinese football officials forced to make public corruption confessions ahead of Asian Cup | The Independent
[10] Amid anti-corruption drive, China’s sports regulator says ‘political stance’ is top priority for cadres | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)
[11] Saudi Arabia - Transparency.org
[12] 20240802_TheSaudiCup_2020_Title (jcsa.sa)
[13] Trainer of champion Maximum Security gets 4 years in prison in racehorse-drugging scheme | AP News
[14] Saudi Cup mired in controversy as €18.3 million prize money is withheld following indictment of trainer Jason Servis in America last month. | Irish Independent
[15] For example, I see betting markets widely available today on Tawaiq FC v Al Entesar FC on 21 October.
[16] Where available or via ‘grey’ or unregulated betting markets.
[17] ITIA - Egypt integrity task force
[18] Karim Hossam: The rise and fall of a match-fixing tennis prodigy - BBC News
[19] Safeguarding sport from corruption | United Nations in Egypt
[20] Respecting Human Rights (olympics.com)
[21] Athletes-Rights-and-Respnsibilities-Declaration-.pdf (olympics.com)
[22] A World Cup of Shame: FIFA Fails LGBT Rights Test in Qatar | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)
[23] More than 100 women footballers urge Fifa to drop partnership with Saudi-run Aramco | ITV News
[24] Protecting Sport Together | Sport Integrity Australia
[25] 'Landmark' prosecution for online abuse of World Cup official - australia | Rugby365
[26] Morocco was the first Arab state to sign, see https://www.mapnews.ma/en/actualites/sport/morocco-signs-macolin-convention-manipulation-sports-competitions
[27] https://rm.coe.int/arabe-conv-ce-manipulation-des-competitions-sportives/16809ed40c
[28] 2021_G20_High-Level_Principles_on_Tackling_Corruption_in_Sport.pdf
[29] LGBTQ fans welcomed in Saudi, says 2034 World Cup bid chief | Reuters
[30] Saudi’s Princess Reema Continues To Champion Women in Sports
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