Saudi Arabia has been awarded the men’s 2034 World Cup.   
  
It will be the crowning event in the kingdom’s sport spending spree, having already reportedly invested USD6.3 billion since 2021, as it tries to diversify away from oil. 

James M. Dorsey discusses FIFA’s awarding of the World Cup to Saudi Arabia in separate interviews with Niall Paterson on Sky News and Steve Lai on the BBC.

To listen to and watch the interviews, please click here

By James M. Dorsey

is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title.