Saudi Arabia: sport as soft power

Faced with repeated scandals over human rights violations, Saudi Arabia is hoping to restore its image by investing heavily in sport.

At the end of August 2023, Human Rights Watch accused Saudi border guards of killing «at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers [who] attempted to cross the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia between March 2022 and June 2023». Mohammed bin Salmane, the hereditary prince in power since 2017, is no stranger to controversy. Many have tarnished his image and that of his country since the resounding 2018 murder of opposition journalist Jamal Kashog-gi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Polemics that have provoked vehement criticism from Westerners - Joe Biden, for example, promised during his campaign to make the