How Middle East Oil Giants Are Building Soft Power
For decades, the oil-rich nations of the Middle East have amassed tremendous amounts of money—more than anyone could possibly spend. Much of it was funneled into sovereign wealth funds, strategic repositories of state-owned cash just waiting to be deployed. Now they are coming into play in a very public way as the world inexorably pivots away from fossil fuels. The very countries who have benefitted most from its sale are increasingly seeking to pivot.
Over the last decade or so, nations across the Persian Gulf and elsewhere have turned their attention to new areas of investment—to diversify away from oil and gas and to increase so-called soft power. One particular arena of interest has been sports. In the Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary How Gulf Giants Are Gathering Soft Power, we explain the growing number of areas in which sovereign wealth funds are investing, and what it may mean for the rest of the world.
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