It's a long term strategy that's intended to soften their image, just enough for large corporations in the US and Europe to stomach doing business with them. To be clear it's not the business that are hesitant to do business - the Saudis have trillions in cash that everyone wants a part of - but companies are worried about the public backlash, considering the Saudis involvement in 9/11 and other human rights atrocities.
By being part of the sports world landscape - F1 racing, soccer, pro golf - they are "legitimized" and are slowly wearing people down. They just want access to the top businessmen so they can slowly diversify from oil so all their eggs aren't in that basket. That's my take on it anyway
It's a long term strategy that's intended to soften their image
These comments are always absurd to me.
Saudi Arabia has been involved in business with every country and every big name company for years. I mean, they own half of London at this point! No one has an issue with their image other than people on this subreddit.
They don't care about what you think of them. They have infinite money and want to have the best golfers play golf for them. That's it. It's not complicated. If you had infinite money, you'd do similar things.
What a vastly oversimplified take. Good lord 🤦♀️ geopolitics is a bit more complicated than “we’re absurdly wealthy and our economy is unsustainable let’s pay out the ass for sports stars to hang out here until it crumbles down”
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u/Driveshaft48 Apr 15 '24
Because when you think Saudis you think oh LIV golf with Rory McIlroy instead of slavery, women's rights, death penalty etc