Bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia wants to take everything. And Paris helps her
Football teams, great players, the 2030 World Cup. And now also the 2030 Expo, with a mockery of Italy incorporated. And with the help of Emmanuel Macron, moreover. Saudi Arabia is buying it all. It all started with Cristiano Ronaldo, but he is continuing at a rapid pace on the football front. Young and old players let themselves be convinced by Riyadh’s petrodollars and move to a league that has so far been completely off the radar.
Karim Benzema, Ruben Neves, Kalidou Koulibaly... and the list goes on and on. The Saudis are raiding Europe for champions. On a sporting level, however, reports the Gazzetta dello Sport, the situation is “grotesque: four top-flight teams have a single owner with identical 75 per cent stakes. It is Pif, an acronym that stands for Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. Three of these four clubs ended the 2022-23 championship in the top three places of the table, in this order: Al-Ittihad (champion team); Al-Nassr; Al-Hilal. The fourth, Al-Ahli, was promoted from the local Serie B.”
Pif is the fund of the Saudi royal family and is managed by Yasir Al-Rumayyan, a 53-year-old confidant of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, destined to become the ruler of the country. 650 billion dollars in assets, including Newcastle, an English Premier League company which this year qualified for the Champions League 20 years after the last time.
The organization of the 2030 World Cup should also be an Arab affair. A response to Qatar’s neighbor and a signal of strength. But Bin Salman is moving with conviction to also conquer the organization of Expo 2030, on which Italy is aiming with Rome’s candidacy. France has sparked an outcry across Europe by backing Saudi Arabia over neighboring Italy to host the glitzy 2030 World’s Fair, as Macron pushes to boost trade and diplomatic ties with the world’s biggest oil exporter.
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