Soft Power at Work
How Middle Eastern Countries are normalizing their influence in Western countries through involvement in sports.
In 2010, FC Barcelona agreed to a first of its kind deal - the Qatar Foundation would be its predominant front shirt sponsor after a record 150 million euro deal. The legendary Lionel Messi would become synonymous with “Qatar Foundation” printed across his torso with every captured moment.
This massive agreement came no less than a week after Qatar was awarded the bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Yet, this was not even the first sign of Middle Eastern influence in the European soccer world. In 2008, Sheikh Mansour of the United Arab Emirates purchased a majority stake in popular club Manchester City, now a behemoth on the world soccer stage. The purchase quickly led to Manchester City being sponsored by Abu Dhabi based airline, Etihad Airways. Millions of fans worldwide began to recognize the logo simply by following their favorite club during the season.
More money flowed in. Emirates Airways, the Dubai based airline began to aggressively sponsor massive clubs in Europe, eventually landing prime jersey sponsorship deals with clubs such as Arsenal FC, AC Milan, and arguably the most popular club in the world: Real Madrid.
Yet the Qatari’s were not done with their investments in the soccer realm. In 2011 Qatar Sports Investments purchased famous soccer club Paris Saint Germain, and solidified what was to become a topic of conversation for years to come over whether teams rich with Middle Eastern cash were deserving of prestige compared to their less well endowed opponents. The large cash reserves from what were essentially - state sponsored organizations- allowed these teams owned by Middle Eastern influences to funnel cash into buying great players and ensuring their teams were successful in competitions and followed by fans across the globe.
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Something similar is going on right now in the world of golf. Earlier this month, legendary golfer Phil Mickelson announced he would be leaving the PGA Tour to join a new golf circuit: LIV Golf.
After Phil, one by one other high profile players defected from the PGA Tour to the new golf circuit, and arguably for good reason. The competition pays much much much more. For reference, The Masters and The PGA Championship had prize purses of roughly $15 million each, respectively in 2021. Every event on the LIV Golf Series will have a purse of $25 million, a staggering amount.
Who created LIV Golf? None other than the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund.
These two events although decades apart are the same move by these Middle Eastern nations at their core: they are a vie for “soft” power in Western countries.
Soft Power
I’ll ask this hypothetical: what is power?
In my own words, power is the ability to make decisions, whether that be over countries, industries, or citizens. Typically in history we have seen “hard” power, which is coercion through economic sanctions, military might, or other forms of force. Soft power is different than influence by force and rather builds influence through establishing networks and drawing on leveraging the resources and power that a country has internally - in this case for Middle Eastern nations - oil money.
Joseph Nye was the first to coin the term back in 1990 in this book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. Nye categorized three primary pillars of soft power: political values, culture, and foreign policy. How can these be leveraged effectively?
Nye laid out five steps needed for a nation to effectively turn soft power into a desired outcome:
Being able to measure what quantifies as a successful outcome, as well as what the unit for measurement of success of each other step above is a difficult task for most nations. The oil giants of the Middle East have quantified conversion as a measure of number of viewers to which the culture of sports in Western nations becomes synonymous with Qatari and Saudi involvement. Number of viewers of events where these organizations participate in reflects the ability to quantify the number of worldwide impressions some of these mega brands such as Emirates, Etihad, and Aramco have.
Not only this, but expanded viewership allows for the target response of familiarity and eventually normalized favorability of Middle Eastern leaders in Western sports culture. Positive sentiment towards many of the teams these individuals own/sponsor will only further speed this process to reach the desired outcome.
Which is exactly the question, what is the desired outcome of the billions of dollars spent?
What is the desired outcome?
The billions funneled into what could be your favorite sports league or team are all for the sole purpose of providing both a cleanse of the previously poor world outlook the world had on the Middle East post-9/11 as well as of atrocities these countries continue to commit.
Only a few years ago did the Saudi regime torture and murder Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who posted comments critical of the regime and its human rights policies. The cash infusions that Saudi and Qatari sponsorships offer also act as a chain of sorts, as negative comments or actions that these owners do not approve of could jeopardize the funding of a given team/league. This thus ensures favorable advertising and commentary towards these regimes in the sporting worlds they participate in. Not only this, but additional power over media advertising in the USA could lead to a more muted media stance and thus lessened political outrage in the event Saudi Arabia or Qatar began a military conflict in the Middle East.
Sports is a major cultural institution in Western countries. Imagine a Middle Eastern country’s wealth fund bought an NFL team. I would hope the media outlets are still honorable enough to call out the hypocrisy of the league allowing that, but at the same time the money that would be brought to the table would lead to other owners to rebuke negative comments about the regime.
This is the soft influence Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been building for years amongst sports in Europe, and only now in the USA. With the expansion of LIV Golf, the Saudi’s will now have the power to dictate advertising and control a large fanbase of the game of golf, as they follow the familiar faces they love seeing week in and week out.
This soft power grab will be successful if these state-owned clubs and leagues begin to burrow themselves in the fabric of sports in Europe and the USA. But we must not ignore the atrocities these nations have committed in their quest. As millions of Yemeni citizens starve through famine as a result of a Saudi waged war on Yemen, and poor Asian immigrants have their passports stolen only to be forced into slave labor in Qatar, we must not ignore these acts.
This is why reporters grilled Phil Mickelson on his new association to LIV Golf this month, as prior to that he made comments critical of the Saudi regime. When asked about it at the introductory press conference, not any substantive explanation came from the prolific golfer.
Looks like it is up to you to decide if use of seemingly endless oil money is hard power or soft power.