In How Hitler Hijacked World Sport (2011) — the story of one man co-opting sport for the Nazi cause — the author Christopher Hilton says, “he approached sport as he approached everything else, by being prepared to exploit it in the most shameless ways as long as it served his purpose. It brought an additional paradox because sport was built on exactly the opposite principles to those Hitler and the Nazis held…”
Less than a century later, another man and another political system is attempting the same strategy with a missionary zeal. Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, understands the power of sport to lend credibility to and buy acceptance for a regime which may not believe in human rights but has the resources to make the world act as if it does not matter. There are those who believe that all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the country’s image, but they are increasingly in a minority.
