Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invest in sport to put their names and institutions before global audiences, build ties with sports organizations and businesses, and support goals such as tourism, economic diversification and domestic participation. They use different combinations of hosting, sponsorship, club ownership, league development and sovereign-wealth-fund investment. These are plausible routes to influence—not proof that sport reliably changes public opinion or creates lasting goodwill.
What does soft power have to do with sports investment?
Soft power is the ability to attract or influence others through appeal and relationships rather than coercion. In sport, a country can seek that appeal by hosting a major event, attaching its brands to popular teams, developing a league that attracts international attention, or building recurring contact with governing bodies, sponsors and visitors.
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These activities can also have financial and domestic-policy rationales. A host may hope to draw visitors and business; a league may create local activity and employment; a sovereign wealth fund may treat sports assets as part of a wider international portfolio. The same investment can serve several aims at once. Neither the spending nor the resulting exposure, by itself, establishes that the country has gained influence or improved its reputation.
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| Instrument | How it creates visibility or relationships | What it may support domestically |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting major events | Links the host to a globally followed competition and brings organizers, teams, sponsors, visitors and media into contact with the country. | Tourism, hospitality, infrastructure and international business opportunities. |
| Owning clubs or competitions | Places state-linked capital in familiar organizations that receive recurring international coverage. | Potential commercial activity and a platform for promoting a country’s profile. |
| Building a domestic league and recruiting athletes | Can attract talent and audiences and make the country a more regular part of sports coverage. | Local sport, participation, jobs and league development. |
| Sponsoring teams, events or governing bodies | Associates a state-linked brand with repeated broadcasts and commercial networks. | Brand exposure and relationships with sports organizations and partners. |
| Investing through sovereign wealth funds | Allows state-linked capital to acquire or finance assets across sport and related industries. | Portfolio activity that may connect with wider goals in media, tourism, culture and economic diversification. |
These routes are not interchangeable. Hosting an event delivers a concentrated period of exposure; a sponsorship or club stake can produce repeated visibility; developing a league is a longer-term effort to establish domestic sporting activity and attract talent. The financial scale of an investment does not reveal which objective mattered most or whether it was achieved.
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How do Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE differ?
The three countries’ approaches overlap, and the distinctions below describe emphases in published accounts rather than exclusive motives. A 2022 comparative study by Vitas Rafael Carosella examined football as a political tool in Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. A 2026 analysis by SWP Berlin looks more broadly at sovereign wealth funds and foreign policy.
| Country | Actors and examples reported | Strategic emphasis described in sources | Domestic or economic rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qatar | Hosted the men’s 2022 FIFA World Cup; Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) acquired Paris Saint-Germain in 2011; Qatar Airways has sponsored major sports properties. | Global visibility, tourism and international standing; football has also been interpreted as a means of supporting the country’s position amid regional disputes. | Showcasing leisure and cultural attractions and supporting tourism and international engagement. |
| Saudi Arabia | The Public Investment Fund (PIF) acquired Newcastle United in 2021, backed expansion of the Saudi football league and funded LIV Golf; the country has hosted Formula One and was selected to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, according to PwC’s 2025 outlook. | A highly visible sports expansion associated with Vision 2030, international profile and competition with neighboring states. | Government-stated aims include diversification beyond oil, tourism, jobs, encouraging exercise and opening the country to the international community. |
| United Arab Emirates | Football investment has been linked to the country’s international positioning; SWP’s 2026 paper identifies Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala and reports its 2025 investment in TWG Global, a platform holding stakes in major U.S. sports franchises and Chelsea FC. | Positioning the UAE as an international travel and business hub, alongside portfolio investment. | Hub-building and investment across a broader range of assets and sectors. |
Qatar: event-led visibility alongside ownership and sponsorship
The 2022 World Cup put Qatar at the center of a major international sports event. Its approach also includes club ownership through QSI’s 2011 acquisition of Paris Saint-Germain and commercial sponsorship, including Qatar Airways’ prominent sports partnerships. Academic analysis connects the events and partnerships with tourism, showcasing leisure and cultural attractions, and strengthening Qatar’s international position. Carosella’s study also interprets football investment as a way to raise Qatar’s standing and help protect its security in regional disputes. These are scholarly readings of strategy, not evidence that each investment produced those effects.
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Saudi Arabia: sports expansion tied to Vision 2030
Saudi Arabia combines high-profile international events with investment in clubs, competitions and its domestic league. The examples in the sources include PIF’s 2021 acquisition of Newcastle United, league expansion and LIV Golf funding. BBC Sport reported the government’s stated aims of encouraging exercise among a youthful population, opening the country to the international community, growing tourism, creating jobs and diversifying the economy beyond oil.
The funding picture can change. On 14 May 2026, the Associated Press reported that PIF had become a FIFA World Cup tournament supporter and said it would stop future funding for LIV Golf. The value of the World Cup partnership was not disclosed in that report. The PIF described sport as a “priority sector” and soccer as crucial to the “ongoing transformation of Saudi Arabia”; these are the fund’s stated position, not an independent assessment of results.
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The UAE: a travel-and-business hub strategy
Carosella’s 2022 comparison links UAE football investment to the ambition of becoming an international travel and business center. The route described by SWP Berlin in 2026 also includes portfolio investment: the paper reports a 2025 Mubadala investment in TWG Global, which holds stakes in major U.S. sports franchises and Chelsea FC. Together, these examples point to both sports-related visibility and investment through broader financial platforms, rather than a strategy defined only by hosting major events.
What are the economic aims—and what do the figures actually measure?
Sports strategies are often presented as part of a wider economic story. PwC Middle East’s Sports Industry Outlook 2025, published on 9 April 2025, says Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds lead 24% of global sports investments. It also projects that Saudi Arabia’s sports market will grow from $8 billion to $22.4 billion by 2030. That is a forecast, not a measured 2030 result. PwC characterizes 50% of the GCC population as under 25, a demographic context relevant to stated aims around participation and domestic sport.
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BBC Sport reported in 2023 that Saudi Arabia’s sports minister estimated the country had invested £5 billion over the preceding three years. This is the minister’s estimate as reported by the BBC, not an audited, comparable total for the three countries or a figure limited to one type of sports investment.
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SWP Berlin’s February 2026 paper says the five funds it calls the “Oil Five” accounted for around 61%—about US$180.3 billion—of the total investment volume among roughly 100 global sovereign wealth funds. That figure covers the funds’ total investment volume, not their sports investment. It should not be treated as a measure of sports spending.
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Why do critics call some investments “sportswashing”?
“Sportswashing” is a critical label for the argument that sports investment can improve or normalize a country’s image while drawing attention away from rights or governance concerns. It is a contested interpretation, not a demonstrated single motive for every investment. Commercial returns, economic diversification, domestic policy, diplomatic relationships, regional competition and reputation can all be factors at the same time.
BBC Sport’s 2023 reporting records criticism of Saudi Arabia concerning human rights, migrant workers, free speech and environmental effects. It also reports that Saudi authorities reject the sportswashing accusation and present sport as part of Vision 2030. The Saudi sports minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal, called the claims “very shallow”. In a 2023 BBC Sport interview, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said: “If sportswashing is going to increase my GDP by 1%, then we’ll continue doing sportswashing.” The remark does not independently verify that sports investment caused a GDP increase.
Criticism was also directed at Qatar over migrant-worker treatment and rights in connection with its 2022 World Cup. More broadly, the academic analysis by Jonathan Grix and Paul Michael Brannagan in American Behavioral Scientist (2024) treats mega-events as a foreign-policy tool and discusses both sport diplomacy and sportswashing. A careful account distinguishes documented investments, governments’ stated aims and critics’ interpretations instead of treating any one explanation as settled.
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Can sports investment be shown to deliver soft power?
The sources describe channels through which sport might build visibility, relationships and attraction; they do not provide a comparable causal measure of public-opinion change across Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. An event can give a country global exposure without proving that audiences’ views improved or that any change lasted. Likewise, a club acquisition or sponsorship can create a continuing association without showing that it translated into diplomatic influence, tourism revenue or commercial returns.
For a financial reading, keep the inputs and outcomes separate. Spending, fund ownership, sponsorship and event-hosting decisions are inputs. Visitor numbers, domestic participation, jobs, investment returns or shifts in public attitudes would be outcomes that need their own evidence and, where relevant, a comparison with what would have happened without the investment. The cited material supports describing strategic aims and possible mechanisms; it does not establish a shared measure with which to rank the three countries’ soft-power results.
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