Entertainment

By David Rowe, Western Sydney University | – Professional golf – and increasingly world sport – is caught in a sand trap. Not the familiar hazard between fairway and green, but the Middle Eastern desert producing enormous quantities of fossil fuels. The resulting riches are being diverted into sport, disrupting its traditional Western dominance. The […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia invests almost $40bn to become Video Gaming Hub

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – In line with its ambitions to diversify its economy away from oil and to become a video gaming powerhouse, Saudi Arabia will be investing $38 billion in the local online gaming industry in Riyadh. According to a report by Bloomberg on Monday, Savvy Gaming Group, a subsidiary of the […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia and Sport: a strategic Gamble aiming for economic, political and social Goals

The Conversation

By Simon Chadwick, SKEMA Business School | – (The Conversation) – Boxing purists may argue over the sporting value of a fight between a reality TV star and a former YouTube prankster. But the commercial value of the massively hyped event in February 2023 was clear for both the contestants (Tommy Fury and Jake Paul […]

Far Right

Saudi-owned LIV Golf “Sportswashes” Rights Abuses

Human Rights Watch

By Leila Saad, Research Assistant | – ( Human Rights Watch ) – Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is attempting to “sportswash” the country’s egregious record of human rights violations through a new global golf tournament that begins later this month. The Saudi-funded LIV Golf’s 2023 tournament will kick off on February 24 in Mexico […]

Health

Football’s One to the Heart: How Safe is the Superbowl for Players?

Tomdispatch

By Robert Lipsyte | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – The echoes still linger from that national sigh of relief last month when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, slammed into cardiac arrest during a game on January 2nd, was declared out of danger. It was a justified sigh. A vibrant young life had been spared. But […]

Arab World

Soccer Champion Lionel Messi’s Black Cloak: a brief History of the Honorary Bisht

The Conversation

By Pardis Mahdavi, The University of Montana | – Shortly before Lionel Messi took to the stage to lift up the World Cup trophy, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani put a black cloak, called a “bisht,” over the Argentinian soccer star’s shoulders. Images of Messi wrapped in black fabric, which might have […]

Authoritarianism

Iran’s Athletes, Including Soccer Players at World Cup, are Boycotting National Anthem to Support Protests

Golnaz Esfandiari

I’m RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari. Here’s what I’ve been following during the past week and what I’m watching for in the days ahead. ( RFE/ RL ) – A growing number of Iranian athletes are refusing to sing the national anthem or to celebrate their victories in solidarity with the months-long anti-establishment protests that have […]

Immigration

Is the Controversy over Qatar’s World Cup just More Orientalism and Islamophobia?

Mohammed Samaana

Belfast (Informed Comment) – The entire Arab world is excited as one of the world biggest sports events, the FIFA World Cup is held in an Arab Muslim country for the first time. This excitement is because of decades of collective feeling of frustration with being portrayed by Western media as backward, uncivilized and savage. […]

Authoritarianism

How Trump helped Sportswash Saudi Arabia

Tomdispatch

By Robert Lipsyte | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Here’s the big question in Jock Culture these days: Is the Kingdom of Golf being used to sportswash the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Or is it the other way around? After all, what other major sport could use a sandstorm of Middle Eastern murder and human-rights […]