Saudi Arabia invests in American martial arts league

Yet another investment for the sovereign funds of Saudi Arabia, the latter recently acquired a minority stake in the PFL, an American league of MMA (mixed martial arts), testifying to the extent of the sporting ambitions of the rich oil country, announced on Wednesday the two parts.

This investment, the amount of which has not been disclosed, is the first led by SRJ Sports Investments, an entity created in early August by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, to attract “major sporting events”. The objective is also to support the economic diversification strategy of the powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, at the head of the PIF.

The agreement "aims to nurture the pool of local and regional talent in the martial arts, promote gender equality in sport and create new opportunities for Saudi Arabia and the region", said the president of SRJ, Bander ben Mogren, in a press release.

MMA, which combines several combat sports such as boxing, wrestling or Muay Thai, was little known in the kingdom until the organization of the regional competition Desert Force in 2014. They gained popularity with the emergence of fighters from the Middle East and the creation of a Saudi MMA foundation to support local talent.

Two Saudis, Abdallah al-Qahtani and Mostafa Rashed Neda, won this month in fights organized at Madison Square Garden in New York by the PFL (acronym for Professional Fighters League, editor's note), one of the main organizations in the discipline after the prestigious Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The PFL plans to launch a regional league next year and hold other "mega-events" in Saudi Arabia, according to the statement released on Wednesday. The amount of the investment has not been disclosed but, according to the Financial Times, it is $100 million. Saudi Arabia has made a lot of noise in recent years by investing in golf and Formula 1. In recent months, the country has shaken up the football world with the recruitment of arms in the local world stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Neymar.

But these astronomical expenses have earned him criticism from activists who accuse Saudi Arabia of instrumentalizing sport to improve its image, tarnished by serious human rights violations in the kingdom.