Saudi Arabia postpones major sporting events amid Houthi attacks

With the attacks on Saudi Arabia have forced the cancellation of a tennis tournament to feature some of the biggest names in the sport. A FIFA gaming tournament has also been called off. The hosting of the Asian Soccer Cup could go the same way. Saudi Arabia has been accused of sports washing its oppressive regime, that's splashing out big money to attract the top names, albeit some of them sometimes beyond their sell-by date, to create a lucrative TV attraction. Take the Saudi Pro Football League, for example. The overall project, though, has been badly hit since Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu launched their joint attack on Iran. And the first big event to bite the dust was the Formula One Grand Prix, cancelled in March, some days after the bombs started to fall. Jean Emil Jamin has this. Saudi Arabia's ambitions to become a global hub for sport, entertainment and diplomacy are facing a growing crisis, and one that's been in place since the U.S.-Iran war broke out in February. The latest blow? The European Union and Gulf states have postponed a major summit due in Riyadh next week, while FIFA has postponed its eSports finals in Jeddah, scheduled to begin on Friday. The decisions come as Houthi attacks intensify, with Riyadh still coming to terms with Saturday's deadly strike on its international airport. The disruption is now spreading across sports. The Six Kings tennis slam featuring Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz has been pushed from next week to late December. Saudi Arabia's Formula One Grand Prix was already cancelled in April, while several domestic football fixtures have since been postponed. The cultural calendar is shrinking too. The Red Sea International Film Festival has been postponed until 2027 while the Soundstorm Music Festival has been cancelled for this year. Next year's Joy Awards are reportedly facing cancellation too amidst mounting budget pressures. The ripple effect of the recent war has triggered a spending prioritisation and consolidation of budgets That is only logical to see this recalibration and reassessment of the spend in events such as in media and entertainment and showbiz. Business, tech and diplomacy are feeling the strain as well. The Misk Global Forum has been cancelled for 2026. Saudi Arabia's flagship future investment initiative, however, still remains scheduled for later this month, with organisers exploring alternative travel arrangements. For Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, though, it's a growing test of Vision 2030, a kingdom built to attract the world, now struggling to keep it coming as war closes in. Let's get the analysis on this one. Guy Barton joins us, visiting fellow at Lancaster University up there in the northwest of England on its sectarianism proxies and de-sectarianisation project, CPAC. Co-creator and co-host of the football podcast. I see you did that. Football and politics missing. Mixing, rather, which some people say they don't, But some people obviously recognize that it's inevitable and unavoidable. And you are so one of them. It's always sad to hear of sports events being canceled, isn't it? Because of war. But should such events be being held in Saudi Arabia in the first place, given Saudi Arabia's human rights record? Well, whether or not it has a problem with its human rights record, it's something that it has chosen to do. But it's interesting that it's been part of its diversification strategy. It's been planned, aiming to move away from hydrocarbons to do pursue more sort of investment alternatives. And sports was one of those things. But I think what's interesting is that although a lot of these sports events and also social and cultural events are being cancelled, it's not really affected those areas that are investor focused. You mentioned you had up there the World Petroleum Congress as well as the Future Investment Initiative. They are still going ahead. The latter is a hybrid spec exercise. So it's really a case of trying to keep the investors happy. Keeping the investors happy. Are they still going to be happy if the stars aren't coming from a sporting perspective? Well, I think that's something more to do with the with Saudi society, really. I think, you know, the Saudi leadership is primarily concerned with ensuring that there is sufficient investments to keep the diversification strategy going. Now, diversification is already undergoing a bit of a shift, and that was happening even before the war in Iran started, as well as the current round of fighting with the Houthis. The diversification has been shifting away from mega, giga events or spectacles like the Neon, the Line City that they were proposing to build towards more domestically focused and productive economic activity. They want to move away from things like rapid growth and seeing more sustained value creation, which means the creation of jobs locally. So I think if they can get that, then I think they can probably ride out any concerns about sporting events happening or not. OK, so is sporting something that's peripheral or something that is central to this strategy? I don't think it's it's been it's in a sense it's done what it needed to do. I mean, there was a lot of attention given over to investments in things like the LIV Golf, for example, or the the bid and winning of the World Cup in 2034, as well as the Asian Cup later this year or rather next year. um but really the the idea there was to sort of attract attention to begin with uh but now what we've seen is they are starting to move away from the the idea of uh you know to becoming more like hosts really and i think that is where this becomes a bit of a problem because of course the Houthi attacks are targeted at things like the airports which are where you know not just uh you know visitors for for sporting events but also investors have to come in on it's one of these things isn't it you have the minute a war breaks out of course all bets are off everybody's concerned about their personal safety sports stars are no different i'm wondering whether in this context in terms of looking at from the sporting perspective there's something like an investment in an English Premier League club become more important well that's that's i'm not quite sure because they still do have their um you know the investment in Newcastle United um you remember a few years ago there was a lot of interest and attention given over to that but it seems to have played down in the last few years regardless. It's not quite like, you know, the Qatari relationship with PSG or Abu Dhabi's with Manchester City. Indeed, the change of the spending regulations regarding the Premier League, of course, perhaps have stymied that in terms of the sort of wild investment that we've seen in English football in the past. I wonder though where it goes in terms of the development of Saudi Arabia and the change of Saudi Arabia, because we've reported, of course, at length about horrible things that have happened. You can mention Jamal Khashoggi, for instance, his assassination, which was completely horrific. When we talk about basing some of the best events on the sporting calendar in Saudi Arabia, it certainly rubs some people up the wrong way. And you could understand why that happens. But is that concept going to change? Is that feeling going to change, you think, as we go through year after year? Well, I think the important thing to note is that the leadership is very much focused around Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince. And given his age, you know, in his early 40s, he's going to be around for some time to come. What's interesting about him is that he has not only consolidated power and tightened it around him, but also that he is trying to, you know, ride two horses at the same time because it's it's an it's a phenomenon that's happening not just in Saudi Arabia, but across the Gulf as a whole. The challenge is to diversify, to shift away from, you know, focus a reliance on hydrocarbons to a more diversified uh economy one that doesn't necessarily privilege um sort of the you know sort of or have this maintain the kind of the lifestyle of the past it's going to require you know remove the uh the sort of the cradle to grave welfare states that has emerged for for national for the national population in many of these countries and of course the challenge is in terms of diversifying away from that that does make life a little bit more precarious for the national population i think what bin Salman has been trying to do here is to balance that with also addressing sort of social changes taking place in the kingdom demographically it's a it's an increasingly young population that's going to be coming through they are going to need to find jobs and they may not necessarily be able to get government jobs as they did in the past so i guess related to this and this is connects to sports and and and the cultural events and spectacles there is a sense of trying to liberalize or at least loosen up saudi society in order to make ensure that the leadership is in line with uh with with that younger population indeed that is an interesting observation and one we'll be watching very closely guy thank you for your time and thank you for sharing your analysis with us greatly appreciated guy barton visiting fellow at lancaster university on its sectarianism proxies and desectarianisation, or CPAD project, and co-creator and co-host of the Football Podcast. Thanks, Guy, for your analysis. Much appreciated.