With the latest news that the European Tour will now be renamed the DP World Championship, are we slowing losing control of our sports.

 

Newcastle is another example where money rather than morals talks, as a major Saudi fund has bought the club much to the concern of many.

 

 

Infact now it is rumored that all Premier League sides may ban selling players to the club.

 

The World Cup is off to Qatar, where they are spending US$200Billion on stadiums, and it is quite obvious that the Middle East sheikhs want to take over football.

 

 

PSG in France, Manchester City in England and several clubs in Europe are now owned by Middle East funds. They are here already!

 

The inaugural Saudi Cup with prize money of $20m, is now the world’s richest horse race.

 

More cash for Frankie

 

Boxing matches are now being attracted to Saudi with massive purses.

 

The Ladies European Tour now play there regularly and even the likes of Dustin Johnson and Bryson De Chambeau took huge appearance fees to play there.

 

Greg Norman is also working with the Saudis and has offered US$200m to the Asian Tour, to increase prize money substantially across their schedules, which of course include more stops in the Middle East.

 

Norman is also aiming to set up a rival tour to compete with the mighty PGA Tour, and feathers are being ruffled.

 

Cricket

 

Abu Dhabi have been hosting the World Cup Cricket, due to it being unsafe to host the tournaments in India or Europe.

 

Could the mega rich Abu Dhabi government now have their eye on buying Lords Cricket ground? The members will be horrified!!!

 

Vision 2030 programme

 

Saudi Arabia are keen to diversify away from relying solely on oil exploration and wish to put the country on to the global stage.

 

But it is also having repercussions across many sports including motor racing, athletics, tennis, golf, and boxing.

Some grumble that Gulf states’ financial influence is distorting markets, while campaigners accuse autocratic regimes of using sports brands to deflect attention from poor human rights records.

 

The Saudis want to reshape perceptions about the desert state and shake-up the nation’s conservative society.

It is all part of their Vision 2030 programme of economic reform, and sport is seen as one way to attract attention.

 

Simon Chadwick, a professor of enterprise at the UK’s Salford Business School, says the phenomenon is changing the global sports industry “tangibly and intangibly.”

 

“It has changed the face of world sport,” he says.

 

“There’s an expectation that the region is going to be a source of revenue. And it increases expectations about what it takes to bid for and organise an event.”

 

The entry of Saudi Arabia, which boasts the Middle East’s biggest economy and the Arab Gulf’s largest population, into the sports bidding market could have the most impact yet.

 

“The sky is the limit for us because it is the mandate within the 2030 Vision to host the best competitions, to promote Saudi in terms of tourism and to use sports, culture and entertainment as a tool,” says Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki al-Faisal, chairman of the kingdom’s General Sports Authority.

 

The alarm bells have been ringing and the lure of the Saudi dollars is becoming hard to resist, especially as many businesses across sport are in financial difficulties.

 

God forbid if we have to get used to Wimbledon’s iconic tournament being called Jeddah Championships!!!

 

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Money has always superseded morals and has for a long time. 

 

That horse has bolted - People just readily accept that morally reprehensible individuals are somehow cleansed  by their wealth. 

 

How the governments continue to do business with regimes such as Saudi Arabia, China and many others considering their human rights records is somewhat appalling...  

 

Taking a moral stand is perhaps too complex, too hypocritical when our own governments allow Major companies to operate in some of these countries and take advantage of the ‘slave-like’ labor conditions.

 

So... Should we be alarmed?, we should. But money has taken over everything else for so long we have all been somewhat numbed to the point we are now tolerant towards deterioration of our own moral standards.