94: Global Sports and Soft Power Diplomacy

The U.S. is currently hosting the FIFA Men’s Club World Cup, an international competition between soccer club teams and the prelude to the larger and more widely anticipated FIFA Men’s World Cup hosted next summer across 16 North American cities. (The latter tournament is played between countries, instead of clubs.)   Fellow Kristian Coates Ulrichsen explains why these competitions and other global sports tournaments aren’t just entertainment, but a space where politics, economics, and diplomacy increasingly intersect, with a look in particular at the case of Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.   Coates Ulrichsen is the author of the forthcoming book “Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer,” which will be published by Hurst on Aug. 21. The book goes beyond the popular term “sportswashing” to explore how and why Saudi Arabia burst onto the international soccer stage in 2023 and won the rights to host the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2034.   Featured: Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Ph.D., https://www.bakerinstitute.org/expert/kristian-coates-ulrichsen X: https://x.com/Dr_Ulrichsen  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristianulrichsen/  Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kristianulrichsen.bsky.social   Mentioned in this episode: Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer (Hurst, 2025), https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/kingdom-of-football/ (forthcoming).   This conversation was recorded on June 3, 2025. You can follow @BakerInstitute on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Learn more about our data-driven, nonpartisan policy research and analysis at bakerinstitute.org.