FIFA has done it again. With its usual sparkle of inventive interpretation, amoral reasoning, and snappy bravura, the world football federation has deemed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fit for hosting the largest sporting event on the sporting calendar – not counting the Olympics. The FIFA Men’s World Cup will be hosted, yet again, in a desert country, where football is a most recent thing but cunning opportunism not.

There are certainly many things going the way of Saudi Arabia, which submitted its official bid to host the tournament in July this year. For one thing, hosting such gargantuan events is crushingly costly to country, city and populace. Such discouragement tends to thin the field of contenders. (Saudi Arabia was the sole bidder for the 2034 tournament.)

The country has also engaged in a sporting strategy that currently involves more than 900 sponsorship deals, one-third of which can be linked back to the country’s US$925 billion sovereign wealth fund. Football, in particular, has seen enormous investment from the Kingdom, be it through sponsorships, partnerships or investments. These measures are vital parts of the Kingdom’s “Vision 2030” program.

A report by the publicly funded Danish sports ethics institute Play the Game notes a degree of sophistication and versatility on the part of the Kingdom’s sporting leaders. “Unlike many of their counterparts in global sports, Saudi sports leaders hold multiple roles that combine leadership in the sports sector with high-ranking positions within the state apparatus, granting them unparalleled political and financial authority.”

These figures are chameleon in nature, simultaneously holding positions in the sporting field, vital ministries, state-owned enterprises, and the sovereign wealth fund itself. The authors of the report identify Yasir Al-Rumayyan as an example, a figure who occupies the position of governor of the Public Investment Fund and chairman of the........

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