Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer

This book talk was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 12 February 2026 by Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen (Rice University) and was chaired by Professor Raihan Ismail (St Antony’s College). Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer (Hurst & Co, 2025) www.hurstpublishers.com/book/kingdom-of-football This talk explores how and why Saudi Arabia burst onto the landscape of world football in 2023 and examines what the speed and scale of Saudi engagement, as investor, owner, sponsor, host, and participant, means for the Kingdom and for football more broadly. Analysis will place Saudi Arabia’s startling emergence as one of the hubs in world football in the 2020s in historical and comparative perspective, set against previous periods of Saudi investment in football, in the 1970s, and attempts elsewhere to rapidly kickstart the domestic game, in the United States, Japan, and China. Going beyond labels such as ‘sportswashing,’ which have gained media currency in recent years, Kingdom of Football examines what drives Saudi policymaking and connects the move into football with domestic economic and social developments and external and foreign policy considerations. The talk also examines how the Saudi foray into football builds upon but differs from the approaches taken by other Gulf States, such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, and assesses the factors that will determine the sustainability and durability of the Kingdom’s engagement with football in the decade-long runup to the 2034 World Cup.