The British Guardian newspaper published an article by Karim Zidan highlighting a campaign by the Saudi "lobby" in America, through sports; to polish the image of the Kingdom and cover up its poor human rights record.
Zidane pointed to information - citing the records of the Saudi "lobby" in the United States for 2018, published last month - revealed the unremitting efforts to communicate with the commissioners of the largest football teams in America, and meetings and deals with the NBA and large baseball teams and other Famous sports federations.
The writer said that these efforts raise many questions about the reasons behind the Kingdom's sudden interest in sports in America, which was not a priority before the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Zidane explained that this sudden interest in sports is a kind of use of soft power to disregard the human rights violations committed by the Kingdom, which has brought a lot of criticism and damaged its reputation in the West.
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Soft power
He adds that the need to rebuild another image of the kingdom has become more urgent after the horrific murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the Saudi attorney general said was deliberate killing. Saudi Arabia has acknowledged responsibility for Saudi officials, and the CIA concluded that the Saudi crown prince In addition to the war in Yemen that killed thousands of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands, and because of it, 14 million Yemenis face the specter of famine.
The writer believes that the strategy of attention to sports comes within the framework of Mohammed bin Salman's keenness to devote a more modern and open image of Saudi Arabia, in light of the criticism faced by the Kingdom for restricting freedoms and unfair laws against women.
He concludes that documents published in the 2018 Saudi Lobby in the United States are the latest example of “sports bleach,” a term Amnesty International used last year to describe authoritarian regimes that use sport to beautify their image in the international community and cover up their poor record in human rights.