Is Saudi Arabia a good choice for the World Cup?
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Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Akinmulere. Coming up, Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 Men's World Cup after running unopposed. So why has FIFA allowed this to happen? What are the wider controversies surrounding their bid? And might Saudi Arabia actually be a good choice for a World Cup?

Joining me today, we have the Athletics' Matt Slater and Jacob Whitehead as well. Matt, let's start with you. We'll get into the controversy surrounding the human rights issues, but let's start with how this bid came into fruition, because we've been talking about this for a little while and now we are finally here. Yeah, well, the bid came into fruition because Saudi Arabia badly want a World Cup. I mean, it's as simple as that.

They're slightly annoyed that they missed out in 2022 and Qatar got there first. You know, that's the simple reason Saudi Arabia wants to bring mega events, wants to bring sports, entertainment, leisure events to the kingdom. It says it's doing this because it needs to diversify the economy, which is absolutely true and has been true for decades. It's a one-trick pony. It's an amazing pony, oil, but it has kind of got Saudi Arabia ready

quite a long way you know it's now a g20 nation but it's kind of plateaued in terms of you know how that economic success has spread through the through the country very very divided society and they know they have a bit of a window of opportunity this oil won't last forever well i suspect actually they all will last for a very long time but i think hopefully the rest of the world will realize we should be using a lot less of it because it's slowly killing the planet so i think they know that

I think MBS, the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman knows that. He knows he must diversify the economy. He must find work and things to do for his growing and quite young population. It's about 35 million plus now. It's doubled since the 90s. A good two-thirds of the population is under 30. And like I said, unlike UAE and Qatar and some of the other places in the region I've been to, there are poor Saudis. So,

That's why they're doing this. Why they've got it, well, you know, I'd love to hear Jacob's view on that, your view on that, because now we get into how we feel about FIFA and how we feel about the way the world works. And let's be honest, none of it's good. But that's what the Saudis are trying to do. Yeah, I mean, it's a really fascinating conversation because, you know, we're talking about Saudi Arabia, but I think I would love to just touch on where FIFA sit in this as well a little later on, Matt. That's a very good point. Jacob, you know,

How Saudi Arabia

been able to run unopposed in their bid for the 2034 World Cup is more something that's really hitting my mind. If we're talking about so much surrounding it in many respects ethically, how have they managed to run unopposed? It's an interesting question. It comes down to FIFA rules. So there are these regulations in place, which means that if a country from a federation hosts a tournament, any other country from that federation is then not able to hold it for at least the next two cycles.

And in theory, you get why that makes sense. You don't necessarily want a certain continent to monopolize hosting of a tournament, but in practice, it means it's something which can lead to this sort of gaming, especially when we think about what's happened in 2030. So if we just run through this in 2026, it's going to be hosted in North America. That knocks North America out of hosting in 2034.

In 2030, it's going to be hosted across three continents. You've got in Europe, you've got Spain and Portugal. In Africa, you have Morocco. And then as part of the centenary celebrations, there's going to be one match in each of Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. Apparently, just those three matches knock South America out of running for the next two cycles as well.

I remember at the time I asked if South America had queried this and said, hang on, we're only hosting three matches. Why are we not allowed to host? And apparently they hadn't raised this as an objection, which surprised me. But all of that means there's only two confederations who'd be left able to host. And that is Oceania and Asia. And Saudi Arabia had really made it quite clear to other federations in Asia that they wanted to host it.

You also have Australia who expressed their interest. They actually play in the Asian Conference and they had had an exploratory bid. They got a bit of a way down the line, but then when FIFA actually announced when they wanted bids in, it was quite an expedited process, which Australia... Well, there's many reasons why Australia withdrew. One was that it was a bit more difficult for them because they needed to do more deals with stadiums from other sports, such as rugby leagues, such as Aussie rules, which would have made it all a bit more complicated. Some of it also was...

Is it worth spending all of that money on? Whereas Saudi Arabia just did not really have that as an upper cap. And the final one was almost a political one for them. It's do we want to pick this fight with a nation who we're having to deal with a lot in the Asian Federation? We're going to have to alienate us from other countries, probably annoy FIFA as well. Is it worth it? So they're trying to host a couple of other countries

as well. Okay, Matt, I want you to take us inside how this vote actually works. You know, did everyone meet round the table, cup of tea, have a chat? What were we saying? A bit of beer, you know, a bit of entertainment from FIFA? How did it all go up? It was a bit like this, you know, all sat round our screens. But it was the strangest thing I've ever seen. And it went like this because FIFA knows what it's doing is controversial and is so terrified of any dissent

It gets itself into these ridiculous situations. And this is what happened yesterday. So the first thing to say is it was online. It was basically a great big Teams call. Gianni Fonsino, the president, and some of the bigwigs were in a very sort of impressive looking TV studio, a little bit ominous actually at times. He was an elector with a great big wall of screens behind him. The 211 member associations were on Zoom calls.

That number's important. FIFA love trumpeting it, and they say it's bigger than the members of the United Nations, as though that makes FIFA somehow better. The vote, as Jacob has explained, was a done deal. We knew all this a year ago. One candidate for 2030, one candidate for 2034, all signed, sealed, delivered. And yet we still went through the usual bid process with the bid assessments, ticking the boxes, and

saying how transparent it was, getting consultants to slap FIFA on the back and say, yeah, amazing, great job. So we had all of that. And then we had, and we knew this was coming because we could see it in the sort of circular that they sent out to the member associations. This is how it's going to play out. That they weren't even going to be voting, you know, on 2030. Yes, no, or abstain. They were going to be voting on both together, on block, as they put it.

So it was basically yes, no or abstain for both. You either like both or you don't. And then almost the final insult, insult to the sort of principle of democracy. It wasn't even a vote. We're going to dispense with that. We're going to do it by acclamation. That means clapping. Now, they have done that for re-elections of Gianni Affantino. And that's, you know, embarrassing enough. I've been in the room when they've done that.

And the idea there, you know, if I'm going to try and play along with their thinking is, if something is a done deal, if something is so unanimous, why bother with a vote? Let's just send out this great big message to the world that we're all behind it. So we had the ridiculous charade of Gianni Fantino literally asking everyone at home to lift their hands to their faces, like so, for the people watching on YouTube, so that everyone could see them clap.

And then they were asked to do, right, we're going to have a little quick vote, quick clap, sorry, on whether we like the process. Yeah, we like the process. Right, now do we vote for 2030 and 2034? Second clap. Now, what was quite interesting, and I know I'm not the only person that did this. I was watching on a couple of screens. One was my phone. So I took a screen grab. And first of all, not all of them were there. Cape Verde, I think, popped out to make a cup of tea.

Qatar wasn't there. I suspect Qatar wasn't there on purpose as Gulf one-upmanship between Qatar and Saudi Arabia is ridiculous. And there were a couple others that were either out of shot or like every Zoom call I've ever been on had somehow managed to knock off their camera. So the whole thing was just bizarre. That's how it should, you know, when the history books are written, that is how the 2034 story

It's so interesting you say this because I'm trying to figure out just, you know, how long this...

I wouldn't say courtship, but let's say relationship between FIFA and Saudi Arabia has been going on for, Matt. How long have they been having this conversation? Because there is a wider conversation about what Saudi Arabia wants to do with itself. But football is massive. Football is huge. All right. Well, I think there's a few things to say there. I mean, look, first of all, Saudi Arabia, unlike Qatar…

It's a genuine football nation. I've already said that it's a large place, 35 million. It's by far the largest in the Gulf, biggest economy in the Gulf. And has qualified for, I think, six World Cups, made the knockout stages in 94. It's had some moments. It beat Argentina, don't forget, in the first game in Qatar. So there's a relationship, an existing relationship, but it's not a pretend relationship. I think what you're getting at, though, is...

When things got serious, right? When FIFA started to think, oh, do you know what? Maybe Saudi Arabia could host the World Cup.

And that really does start with MBS, Mohammed bin Salman. He emerged as the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia in about 2016, 2017. Don't want to get too far on a tangent here. Sort of slightly came out of nowhere, surprised a lot of Saudi watchers, did it in a very ruthless fashion. And yeah, he's the boss. And he made it pretty clear pretty quickly that he was going to change things.

and he was going to open the country up to investment for the reasons I've already mentioned about diversifying the economy, giving stuff for people to do, job preservation really. You know, he's worried about things like the Arab Spring. He's worried about what happens when people stop buying Saudi oil. So he's a pragmatist, not some benign dictator or philosopher king. He is a pragmatist. Now,

We, I think, picked up that Saudi really does want a World Cup during the build-up to Qatar. Now, without again going into too much history, there was a, one of the many strange, well, not strange, but one of the many aggressive things he's done is start an economic blockade of Qatar. They had a list of grievances with Qatar. This is Saudi Arabia and UAE and the other Gulf neighbours. But one of them, it was just one of them, was that Qatar was a bit uppity. It was upsetting people.

their biggers and betters with things like the World Cup. So Saudi wanted some of the 2022 World Cup. Long story short, Qatar stuck to its guns and did not share that tournament. So from that moment on, we knew Saudi Arabia wanted a World Cup. They wanted the 2030 World Cup. And for the reasons Jacob explained earlier,

Couldn't have 2030. And what we got was this ridiculous compromise to guarantee they'd get 2034. So we knew, FIFA knew, that Saudi Arabia wanted a World Cup, I would argue, from 2017, 2018, around then. Now, the relationship has grown and grown and grown as Saudi Arabia, as we've seen in golf, tennis, almost any of the other sector, thrown money around. So, Newcastle United, Live Golf, the boxing, tennis, football,

and so on and so on and so on. That relationship has cemented. There have been sponsorships, Aramco, Saudi Tourism Board. We've just been talking, haven't we, about the Club World Cup and the massive help, direct and indirect, that Saudi Arabia are giving FIFA to get that competition up and running. So the relationships have been there for some time. They are cemented by money, basically, almost entirely cemented

So that's it. That's the story, really. FIFA has a patron and the patron gets prizes. Yeah, Jacob, FIFA have also awarded the Saudi Arabia bid a score of 4.2 out of 5. Now, this is the highest in the organisation's history. Firstly, just give us an understanding of how they come up with that score, but also what it means. But what is FIFA's reasoning behind that? FIFA produced this big 130-page statement

bid evaluation, which despite sounding as if it should be incredibly dry in Saudi's case is actually as interesting as this can be because you sort of do see these contortions as to why things are scored as highly as they are. So I mean, they get scored on various sort of factors such as stadiums, such as infrastructure, sustainability. Yes, human rights comes into it. I'd say there is two

major reasons why and this is FIFA's reasoning why Saudi is so high one of them is the infrastructure Saudi are having massive investments as part of project 2030 in FIFA's mind all of that is effectively going to already be there it's saying look we've got all of these great transport options around Riyadh we've got all of these stadiums which are already going to be built and

just as part of their general sports policy. Nothing to do with us, which will be interesting when it comes to sustainability calculations later. That's one part of the reasoning. The second is money. Matt's already used the 211 figure. That is really important. And I think it's quite important to understand some of FIFA's line of argument here. They say we represent 211 nations and...

If you step back from that, probably over half of them don't have any realistic prospects in at least the short to midterm of qualifying for a World Cup, but they will have a vote.

So these are all stakeholders who, in a way, don't really care about what the tournament is actually going to look like, but they effectively want lots of investments from FIFA to develop football in their country. FIFA say, well, we represent them just as much as we represent the USMNT, as much as we represent England, Germany.

And therefore, picking a tournament which generates the most money possible so that we can grow football in countries like Samoa, Micronesia, Swaziland, is all really important to us. And that is why when it comes to these voting blocks, while it's quite easy for, say, a bid like the Saudi bid,

They managed to sign memorandums of understanding before this tournament with confederations like CAF in Africa with the rest of the Asian bloc, which effectively guaranteed votes from even if they had been running against someone. It's probably a bit harsh to call it a stitch up. You could also just call it negotiation and money talks and that.

And that is really why FIFA gave him such a strong score, money and infrastructure. Yeah, just to jump in there, it's funny talking to Saudis. You know, they wanted a vote. They were actually annoyed with FIFA that they didn't get their vote because they wanted that moment. They wanted the vindication, the confirmation that they'd been through a proper process. And I agree with everything Jacob said. Perhaps the things to point out is

They are incredibly proud of that 4.2 score. I mean, I was in Saudi Arabia at this football conference and they talked about it like it was a score, like a score of a result, like a famous result, the 4.2. I almost had to do a double take, like I'd missed some sort of round of qualifying because they were actually struggling to qualify for 2026. Oh, Lord, you're talking about the bid assessment. Incredibly important to them. They feel vindication. Now, the things to point out here are

They've only done four of these, FIFA. This was only brought in, this scoring system, for the 2026 process. So it's the best of four. So it beats the Morocco score that the United bid beat by a mile. The Morocco bid had loads of holes in it. It does beat the US score, but it's pretty much the same. It beats it by a fraction. And it beats the Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina score as well. So it's the best of four. Now, if we drill into it,

It is pretty similar to the US assessments. There are some very, very eye-opening scores, though, that I think reveal so much about FIFA and how FIFA thinks. So the Saudi stadium score is higher than the US, basically the US score. Now, how can that possibly be right?

We are talking about stadiums in the North American World Cup that are all built. Most of them are genuine world-class stadiums that are already hosting massive events. Already. They are the best in class. And yet the Saudi bid, which is 15 stadiums, 11 of which are pictures, beautiful pictures, fantastical pictures, some of them, and four refurbs, is better.

Now that is because FIFA will always buy the dream, always buy the picture and not the reality. Now that is depressing. Another score that I found remarkable was the transport. Again, that is FIFA's

always going for the hope, the dream, the promise from the consultants, from the host government, that what they will deliver will be better than the reality. Let me tell you, the reality of travel in Saudi Arabia, it's the worst traffic I've ever experienced in my life, in my years of traveling. Riyadh, the traffic is unbelievable. Leaving the game I went to, Al-Hittihad versus Al-Nasr in Jeddah, they play late there. Getting back to the middle of Jeddah,

was just remarkable. My taxi driver was just ripping his hair out. They'd even picked the fare up. We just stuck in traffic and there is no other way. And they're not planning another way either. There's a metro system that's just opened in Riyadh, but there isn't one planned for Jeddah. So good luck selling that out. And FIFA will tell you, we went, we went, we were there in October. Well, I'm struggling to wonder how you gave transport medium risk and not high risk.

And then, of course, there's the most arresting and alarming assessment of all, that Saudi Arabia's human rights risk is medium. Medium. Now, even if you are

of the view to be optimistic about this, and I think we're going to get onto my piece, and you're of the view that you will acknowledge there has been progress made in the last few years, how you can say that Saudi Arabia's human rights risk, the impact of a potential World Cup in Saudi Arabia is only of medium risk. I just can't get my head around that. And I think they try to justify it by a line that

in the report that says, look, what we're doing here is not making what they call a peremptory view of an entire nation's human rights record. We are specifically looking at the tournament's human rights plan and whether they are going to address the things that we're going to speak to them about, building sites for stadiums, just general human rights rules around

staff and inviting people in. Very, very narrow, specific stuff to do with the tournament and not the bigger picture. All right, you could say, fine, well, what should FIFA be addressing? What could FIFA do? What are the limits? Can FIFA really go to any state and say, you know, you must improve your human rights record? Yeah, all right. Yeah, cheers, cheers, Johnny. I mean, so there is a limit. However, to not even attempt that, to not even use the leverage of, do you want us World Cup or not?

is depressing and is very much on FIFA and it's very much my biggest criticism of what happened in Qatar that they did not use the leverage they had to get more from Qatar in terms of improvements and to get more from Qatar in terms of actually sticking up, you know, living up to their promises. So that I think is shocking but that's some of the context around the bid assessment. Music

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You're listening to The Athletic FC Podcast with Io Akamulere. So Matt, what was the reaction to Saudi winning the bid? We've talked about a lot right now and I'm wondering if there were any objections or anyone abstained, for instance. Yeah, Norway, to their massive credit, Lisa Clavenus, who has done so much around Qatar, post-Qatar. She's definitely the bravest of the bunch.

She effectively abstained. She said that she was the only Norwegian Football Federation, the only ones that said, we don't like this. But like I said, it was an acclamation. So what could she do? She actually asked, I want you to, on the record, record that we're not down with this.

And to be fair, the Swiss Football Federation also wrote a letter to have on record that they didn't like the process. They had problems with the process. So that's two. I think one thing which is really interesting about that FIFA note, which Matt brought up earlier, saying that we're only going to judge you on things which are going to be changed as relation to the tournament rather than on your record is,

Your basic record is it basically rules out any country ever being rejected from hosting a tournament on human rights grounds. If it's only ever going to be measured in the sense of can you make an improvement from what it is currently in the context of a tournament, you could have a country of absolutely appalling across the boards, as some argue that Saudi Arabia might be, and it wouldn't be ruled out. It effectively means that it is...

something which can be run by consultants' promises rather than in the actuality of what the human rights situation on the ground is. It's not as if this is unprecedented. There's Qatar two years ago. These objections were raised at the time. Russia? Russia was the other one I was going to say, exactly.

The bigger question is, you know, I was in Brazil. I was on the streets protesting when people were screaming and saying, look, the World Cup's coming into Brazil. Look at what we've got here. People are being displaced from their homes. You know, I was in South Africa for the South Africa World Cup. Similar conversations around the World Cup coming in. But the bid was saying there's going to be a football infrastructure put together. And look what's happened. The circus has come in and has gone away and nothing has happened. I mean...

Have FIFA not learnt anything? I mean, what does he say about the bid for the World Cup? Is it just a box-ticking exercise in a corporate sense, Matt, in terms of, you know, let's say I want to build a house just down the road in a poor area and I've got to put this bid on. So, yeah, we're going to regenerate the area. I build the houses and there's no regeneration for the local community. Is it a very similar kind of approach to bidding for a World Cup? Seems to be. I mean, to answer your question, what have FIFA learnt? I don't think they've learnt much at all. Nothing. They say they have and...

You can get into long conversations with them where they'll say, and it sounds like they've heard it. You talk about white elephants. You talk about legacy. They all do it. Not just FIFA, every federation, IOC as well. All those stories about, you know, unneeded facilities that cost a fortune that the populace can't really afford. So many stories. South Africa's a really good stroke, bad one. Brazil, similar. And yet they keep doing it.

That's the thing that I find very frustrating. I mean, frustrating is putting it mildly. And you get to the point, well, you know, what countries can? Where should we go? And, you know, with the IC, there's this debate about, well, maybe we have one site, right? We just go there. We keep going back because it's not fair to expect, you know, City X to build a velodrome and a swimming pool and a canoeing facility that they don't play those games. Why would they do it? I think football...

rightly or wrongly, takes the view, well, look, football's really popular and we're going to countries that like football. I think Qatar is the big exception there. And the further I get away from Qatar, the more angry I get about the choice of Qatar. But most places have a love and a population that might be able to, might be able to sustain football.

some of these improved facilities. And that is certainly the story that Saudi itself has been loudly telling. And I think sincerely telling, you know, we're probably going to get onto my piece and the reactions to it. But I went to Saudi Arabia sort of armed with these questions and armed with my preconceived ideas about the Gulf in many ways. And I have come away a little more

that Saudi Arabia can possibly do

the infrastructure left behind by a World Cup. What's quite interesting about this stadium issue at the same time and the building of infrastructure is that previously Infantino has spoken saying that the era of a single country World Cup is over. They're all going to be joined. And when's an exception made? It's for Saudi Arabia, who's been close with, as Matt says, over half a decade now. And that does speak volumes. Yeah. And very similarly to the Qatar incident,

World Cup Saudi Arabia summer is is excruciatingly hot Jacob like 40 plus are we going to see another winter World Cup again just to make sure that actually people can play football on the field in all likelihood yes it's not yet been moved they're saying they're having conversations with relevant stakeholders I think the working expectations it probably will be just because of the

just sheer how difficulty of playing in the summer. It might be a slightly different time of year. I think Ramadan is scheduled to be in November and December of 2034, which means in all likelihood it will probably be held rather than at the end of the year, at the start of the year, in a sort of January, February sort of time. I think for Qatar, they announced there's going to be a winter tournament, I think seven years before the tournament began in 2015 or so. So, I mean, there's still...

three or four years left in a way to work off a similar time scale before they make that final decision. Yeah, Jacob's right. Just on that, I think at least we are missing that ridiculous period with Qatar where we spent four or five years talking about refrigerating the country and Qatar ran around saying, no, we're going to do it in the summer and FIFA, we're going to do it in the summer when everybody knew you couldn't do it in the summer. They purposely haven't put a slot down.

And I think everybody knows it's going to be winter. It's going to be winter. The only doubt is quite when. And I think it is looking like January, February. Could it be January, February 2034 or 2035 even? That's the thing. There's so much uncertainty here because not only do you have the Ramadan issue and all the practicalities around Christmas and New Year, et cetera, et cetera. You have a winter Olympic Games starting in February 2034. You have Super Bowl.

the second weekend of February. Now, these seem like small things, but they're not because we're talking about broadcast deals, sponsors that don't want to be splitting their baskets or our attention. So things have to fit in places. This is a 48-team World Cup, 100-plus games. The next one, the first of these bigger World Cups, is, of course, 2026. It's 39 days. So you need...

Five, six weeks. And then, of course, you've got the player release as well. We're talking about a massive disruption to the European football calendar. And I'm afraid to make it even more alarming. It's very, very likely that Saudi Arabia will get the Club World Cup in 2033 or scheduled for 2033 as a kind of warm up event.

So we're looking, I think, back to back winters of huge disruption for European football. Matt, you've previewed your piece and we're going to get to it in just a second. But before that, during your time in Saudi recently, you spoke to Hamad al-Balawi, the person in charge of the successful Saudi World Cup bid. Let's have a listen to him recently reflecting on his work on that bid as part of Saudi Vision 2030. I'll share with you one anecdote. I remember the launch of the vision and I remember the three pillars that were launched as part of this vision.

And I remember seeing vibrant society, thriving economy, and I get those very straightforward. I remember looking at the third one, ambitious nation, and it took me some time to really understand what is this trying to achieve? And you mentioned the day that I was asked to be part of this bid team. And, you know, I grew up as a person that loved football. I played football manager on my computer. So we all had ambitions, but they were some sort of ambitions that weren't

Unleashed. What the vision has done, it's unleashed the dreams of all Saudis. We're all achieving our dreams in every area, and that's an ambitious nation. So very grateful for the vision that has allowed us to do this. We are the best ever bid. It's a fact. That is on merit. That is a fact. And we will be very proud in submitting our bid on December the 11th, and we'll be very, very honoured to host this forum.

You were in Saudi last week and you've dropped a really interesting piece actually on your trip in Saudi Arabia. It's on The Athletic right now and it outlines why Saudi Arabia might actually be a good choice to host the 2034 World Cup. I've taken a look at the comment section, Matt, and it's fair to say there were some mixed reactions to that piece. But just off the back of what Hamad just said, I think it's like any other country really that hosts a World Cup.

When the circus does come into town, there is a sense of local pride that, you know, the biggest stage on earth is actually on your own soil. Oh, God, absolutely. Look, just full disclosure, just that little clip there was Hamad speaking to everybody at this World Football Summit in Riyadh last week. He gave a kind of sort of keynote speech saying,

And that last bit about on merit, you know, the best, that was like his bullet point finish. There was a standing ovation after that. And he repeated it in interviews afterwards too. Look, yeah, the piece is there if people want to read it. I knew I'd be swimming against the currents with this one. I did not think the current would be quite this strong, but...

you know, there it is. I've written it. Nobody paid me to write it apart from the athletic that is. I wish I was put up in nice suites and given limousine rides around. I didn't, I wasn't, I, I did the itinerary. I kind of traveled a bit under the radar and I spent my time kind of watching, observing, talking to as many people as possible and,

Now, inevitably, and this isn't just Saudi, this is the nature of journalism, I'm afraid, in every country, some of those people were consultants. They were Saudis. They were people working for the government. They were people from all around the world, to be honest. But, you know, I've been doing this a while, so I've learned to sort of filter out those sort of messages. But a lot of the people I spoke to were regular, everyday folk, driving Ubers, drinking coffees,

working in restaurants, sitting next to me at football games, et cetera, et cetera. So the reason I went to Saudi Arabia is I suppose I'm the person at The Athletic who has been writing about the politics and sort of business of football the longest. I think I'm the person that wrote the most about Qatar, certainly the migrant worker issue. And whilst I'm very aware and sensitive to the fact that I'm not an expert on everything, you know, journalists by nature are generalists,

And I'm also in Qatar was very aware that I, as a white male heterosexual would not be an expert on what it is to be LGBT or a woman in a Gulf state. I would not have the awareness there to tell that story best. So I would always defer to others on that. I did think I had a good grasp on, let's say the migrant worker and the kind of political and economic issues that

I went to migrant worker camps. I spent time with them more than once, more than one visit, play football with them, play cricket with them. I watched games with them at the World Cup in Qatar, where I was the only white person in an enormous cricket stadium. So I think I've got a handle there. And I wanted to go to Saudi Arabia because I got to the point where I thought, I'm going to be writing about Saudi Arabia for the rest of my career, for the next 10 years. And I can't write about them unless I go. So I went. I've come back.

a little less depressed and angry and a little bit, little bit more optimistic that maybe there is a chance this time because Saudi Arabia is a real country with real problems. It has a leadership that for pragmatic, selfish reasons, I think is moving the country in a direction that most of us in the West want it to move.

It has already moved a tiny bit. I asked, I checked, I asked again and again, has it changed a bit? And the answer was universally yes. Do you think it's still going to keep changing? Yes. Okay, great. That's something then, isn't it? Something to build on. And the bit specifically around football, we are a football site, we talk about football.

is my experience at the football was the best experience I had. It was the happiest I saw Saudis. I saw women working there. I saw women in the crowd. Not many, but there were none a few years ago. The women that were working were not being bossed around by men. I saw something that, do you know what? This could, could make this part of the world a bit better.

And that is something, isn't it? Now, I'm appalled with the process. I'm still angry and I'll continue to be angry with FIFA as to how we got here. But we're there. Not only are we there, pretty much the rest of the world and every other sector is there as well. While I was there, Emmanuel Macron arrived. As I was leaving, Keir Starmer arrived. They were holding a United Nations conference on desertification of all things. There was a massive film festival in Jeddah where umpteen big celebrities were there.

Michael Douglas, Eva Longoria, Minnie Driver, Spike Lee, Vim Diesel. They wrote the game. So the piece, you were nice. You were very polite when you said it has a mixed response. It has a pretty strongly negative response, and the reactions are angry. I made those reactions myself. I've seen those comments. I've just got to the point where...

I almost want this to be worth it. And maybe it won't. And I'm going to hold Saudi Arabia to account and FIFA to account. But the piece is there. I might change a few words. But the fundamental point is what I thought and what I still think, reflecting on my first-hand experience there and elsewhere in the region. ♪

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I guess the moral quandary here for anyone who might disagree with Matt's position in any way, shape or form is that as football fans, regardless of what goes on, we're probably going to click that remote control and watch the World Cup go out and watch some of the greatest players play at the world stage. Yeah, some of this almost feels like I'm having a conversation again about covering Newcastle, where in a way,

Your club, who you've supported for decades, is taken over by ownership whose politics, whose human rights you may not agree with. But yet it's quite a lot to just say goodbye to the club. You didn't ask for that as a fan. You're supporting your local club. As a football fan, you want to see the best players in the world perform. To what extent should you, as an individual consumer, it comes down to, and yet you interact in a capitalist society. One thing I think is quite interesting is that

to do behind the motivations for this is MBS's role in all of this because the Saudi state to all intents and purposes is MBS he knows what is going on he's setting his direction yes he has a team but they are

effectively at his whims and he's shown a desire to to interact with western leaders a heavy intention especially compared to his predecessors and it's worth thinking about the motivations behind that on one hand as matt said before he's got this very young population who he wants to keep happy and that population sees life in europe in north america and they see lots of stuff they like there's concerts there's sporting events on the other hand there's

very traditional side of Saudi Arabia and it's more conservative clerical leaders who are the ones who more often than not want to uphold some laws around, for example, LGBTQ plus community around women. And MBS from...

I mean, yes, he's at the top, but it is a political game. It is a game of thrones where he's having to keep both those sides happy as he develops Saudi Arabia. He wants to change it for his young majority population, but is wary of the power of those clerics. I mean, Saudi Arabia are terrified of the involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood potentially going down the line. He's...

trying to hold this balance. And so when we think about all of his purposes, when it comes to how he's reforming Saudi Arabia, it needs to be viewed through that lens. It is MBS and his desire to hold on to power. Yes, it's developing the country economically, politically, but it's developing it so that he can consolidate his position. He's going to be in charge of Saudi Arabia for three or four decades. It's all about entrenching that. It's fascinating you call Saudi Arabia a developing country economically, because Matt, that's not what

vision-wise, we see it as. There's this idea that we've got all this oil wealth, which if we think about it, we also contribute to as well because we've got this appetite for fossil fuels in the West in many respects. But also,

Back to what Jacob was saying, you know, what MBS is trying to do is really, really fascinating and what he's trying to balance or the balancing act he's trying to uphold. Just take us back a little bit to who MBS is, Matt. But also, what does that future look like then in terms of what else he's trying to do? Because we've talked about boxing, we talked about other bits of sport. I mean, what does that regeneration really look like for the future of Saudi Arabia?

Yeah, okay. So MBS Mohammed bin Salman, I think he's the seventh son of the current King, King Salman. The Saudi royal family is massive. Thousands of princes, and they have a ludicrously gilded existence, and they have done. Saudi Arabia, for a long time, Saudi Arabia, the country is about 100 years old. They discovered wealth, discovered oil pretty soon, I think 1930-odd, and got rich pretty quickly, certainly 50s, 60s.

went from being kind of a loose collection of nomadic tribes and elites, bickering elites, frankly, to a country. It's an enormous country, very, very arid, desert, middle, but with a gulf fringe and a long Red Sea coast. Like I said, the population is growing. So that's who he is. He's the House of Saud. It's the country's literally named after the Rawling family. It's their country.

very, very conservative Islamic state. It's the home of the two holiest mosques, Mecca, Medina. They are the custodians of those two holy sites. They take their religion very, very seriously. The particular strain of Islam there is austere and conservative. It's Wahhabism. They have been exporting that and therefore terrorism at times around the globe for a long, long time. However, MBS himself has said that

And if we look at the actions, appears to believe it, that he wants Saudi Arabia to move to a more moderate form of Islam. Several reasons, and I keep coming back to this. I think he's a pragmatist. He wants, needs Saudi Arabia to be a more attractive place to visit and stay and do business in. He knows that the oil is great. It's got them so far. I think they're 17th, 18th in terms of GDP.

And he certainly has this enormous sovereign wealth fund, which is his public investment fund. And they have this big, their latest national vision, which is exciting, I guess, if you're a consultant or a government, foreign government. So he has that, but he has to make Saudi Arabia a more attractive place because one, he talks about leakage. He talks about rich people in Saudi Arabia going away, spending their money in Europe or Dubai. He wants to stop that. He wants to encourage people to stay, build a service economy there.

And he wants people to move their businesses, grow businesses other than energy businesses. That means bringing their families. That means making it more attractive for their wives and daughters. It means making it less intolerant. It makes it just more comfortable place to be. So he has to make it a more moderate form of Islam. So that's what's going on. Absolutely. We can talk about, is it going far enough, quick enough? Will it ever get to the point that we want it to get to? All very, very important debates, but,

Bigger than this show, bigger than our little venture, I'm afraid. So that's all happening. Will it get there? God knows.

God knows. It's worth mentioning that MBS got promoted for his position to an extent because of talent. Yes, he's a member of political talent, at least. Yes, he's a member of the royal family, but it's not a direct line of succession. He was not in line and in a way he had to impress, he had to position himself before he was selected. And it was his now some bringing together these disparate strands of quarreling and bickering royal family that effectively meant he sort of usurped other people's

who would have ordinarily been in the order ahead of him to become crown prince and then ultimately the power in Saudi Arabia. He's not someone to be underestimated in terms of his ability to negotiate these quite fraught political landscapes. Yeah, it's interesting you said, Matt, that the happiest you saw people while you were there was at the football. And it just makes me think just how...

of a great PR spin this is to uplift a nation in many respects. The global game has come here and also on a PR level that we can do this FYI. So actually, if we band together, we can potentially make this country as great as I want it to be. You know, can I dismiss that? Well, look, that's the story. That is what they're selling us. That's what FIFA has bought. It's what makes Gianni Infantino sleep at night, I assume. It's what all sports people

You know, if you run a big organisation, a big sports organisation, you genuinely believe that. You believe in engagement. You believe in the power of sport. You believe that it can change. It has this positive effect. Now, look, the track record going back 100 years is really mixed, really patchy. You know, it nearly always under delivers, over promises and under delivers. You know, are there some success stories? Yes, there are. Could this be one? Like I said, I've written it, you know, maybe. I certainly hope so.

To go back to sort of what Jake was saying, what I was saying, the happiness I saw, I just, I'm telling you because I saw it with my own eyes, right? What he's trying to do is use sport to entertain, to create jobs, to make the country more attractive, to sports wash if you like, all of that stuff. But it all has to work. It all fits and knits together. He wants sport. He wants to create a domestic sports industry that contributes about two and a half, three percent GDP as it does in our country.

He wants to tie that to tourism and not just pilgrims going to Mecca and Medina. He wants to develop the Red Sea. That means lots of spending there. It probably means relaxing the alcohol ban. It certainly means relaxing, you know, moving to that more moderate form of Islam. He wants to encourage people to come there and play golf. All of it sits together.

It might seem, you know, why is he doing that? Why is he doing that? It is part of a great big plan that has been drawn up by consultants and it's not the first and probably won't be the last. There'll be a Vision 2040, I'm sure. But unlike many leaders in countries that many of our listeners live and work in, this is a guy who has total power and he has a lot of money to do it. So it's that sort of combination of wealth, money,

The ability, the power to sort of press buttons and things to happen. That is why Saudi Arabia is a bit different than many other places. All right, gents, let's call it there. Matt, Jacob, really appreciate your time. And I do ask you to try and take a read of Matt's piece on The Athletic right now. We'll be back tomorrow with the weekend preview where we focus on the Manchester Derby. Thanks for listening.

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