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Hosting the World Cup
00:15:16
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| Now a lot of people think that Saudi suppresses free speech and I think there's merit to that argument in many ways. | |
| You've made no effort to censor me. | |
| I mean you couldn't because the show's called uncensored. | |
| Do you think journalists are going to give the same scrutiny to the US, Canada and Mexico and their human rights records as you're going to get? | |
| No, but it is what it is. | |
| Donald Trump is the president of the United States again. | |
| Is this a good thing that he's been re-elected for you guys? | |
| If he loves sports, yes. | |
| Would you be happy for Russia as things stand to compete in 2034? | |
| I mean that decision is with FIFA, it's not with the FIFA, but we don't mix politics with sports at all. | |
| If the Taliban are going to stop women competing in sport, then we shouldn't be encouraging playing in the men's game. | |
| What do you think? | |
| I think the athlete shouldn't be a victim of political decisions. | |
| We stand firmly with the Palestinian people, but that has nothing to do with the sports. | |
| Football is obviously getting bigger and bigger here. | |
| The latest should be thanking me really, because without my interview with Cristiano Ronaldo that led to him leaving Manchester United, he wouldn't be here. | |
| President Trump's first phone call to another world leader wasn't to historic allies like France or the UK, nor was it to Ukraine's Zelensky, Russia's Putin, or Israel's Netanyahu, with whom he's had urgent business on brokering an end to their deadly and unpopular wars. | |
| His first call, in fact, was about business of the kind he knows best, investment, trade, and profit. | |
| And the man at the end of the line was the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. | |
| Well, Riyadh was Trump's first destination as president in 2017, and it may well end up being his first again in 2025. | |
| So first foreign trip typically has been with UK, but we did it. | |
| I did it with Saudi Arabia last time because they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of our product. | |
| I said, I'll do it, but you have to buy American product. | |
| And they agreed to do that. | |
| They bought $450 billion. | |
| It was the least reported story I've ever been involved in. | |
| Well, I don't know. | |
| If Saudi Arabia wanted to buy another $450 or $500, we'll up it for all the inflation. | |
| Saudi Arabia is now weighing up a $600 billion investment in the United States, but most of the big spending is at home. | |
| The kingdom wants to be the world capital of sports and entertainment, and it has the money to match the vision. | |
| Well, many top footballers have followed Cristiano Ronaldo to Riyadh. | |
| Major boxing bouts and Dana White's UFC are now a fixture here. | |
| They're building it, but will the world come? | |
| I've never been to Saudi Arabia until now, my first trip here, despite many visits to other parts of the Middle East. | |
| I've seen and read a lot about Saudi Arabia, and judged only by Western media, you might think it to be a dusty, dangerous place where misogyny rules and the people live in fear. | |
| So I thought I'd come and judge it for myself. | |
| Always a good idea when you read narratives which perhaps are a little distorted. | |
| And well, this is not a hostage video. | |
| No one's telling me what I can and can't say. | |
| I can go wherever I like. | |
| I've been walking around quite happily on my own. | |
| I've already met some very interesting people. | |
| And crucially, this is uncensored, as it always is. | |
| That's the basis of any country in Saudi Arabia. | |
| They feel that way about their country. | |
| This is Saudi Arabia. | |
| We're the most important country in Islam. | |
| You know, we're the leader of the Arab world, which they are. | |
| They're very proud of it. | |
| Great. | |
| I'm not a Muslim or an Arab, not from the Middle East. | |
| I come here. | |
| They're like, great, so glad to have you. | |
| By the way, you're not allowed to change the laws here because you're not Saudi. | |
| This country is changing fast. | |
| That is for sure. | |
| After years of living under antiquated rules, women can now work, drive, and move freely around the country. | |
| They're welcome at concerts and in sports stadiums. | |
| And they're embracing it. | |
| Only of women and families alongside me to enjoy Al-Nasser's 3-1 victory at the weekend. | |
| Ronaldo School, of course, under the watchful eye of an old friend. | |
| Say he is more again. | |
| Ronaldo. | |
| Sport is at the heart of Saudi Arabia's plan to transform its economy, and sport is driving much of the rapid and dramatic social change. | |
| In 2034, it will host the biggest sporting contest of all, the World Cup. | |
| And the man charged with delivering it is Prince Abdelaziz bin Turkey al-Faisal. | |
| I sat with him. | |
| In Riyadh for a Noel Holzbaard, lengthy interview that I'm sure will make a lot of headlines everywhere. | |
| Nothing, crucially, was off-limits. | |
| This was genuinely uncensored. | |
| Claims about human rights, abuses, women's rights, sports washing. | |
| He answered everything that I asked him. | |
| But take a look and judge for yourself. | |
| Your Royal Highness, it's great to meet you. | |
| My first time in Saudi Arab, first time in Riyadh. | |
| Fascinating to be. | |
| I've been here 24 hours. | |
| I can already feel the excitement and the energy and the dynamism about the World Cup. | |
| And we're still 10 years away. | |
| So I can't imagine how you're feeling as the Minister of Sport. | |
| But take me back to the moment you heard you'd won. | |
| Obviously, you were the only bidder in the end. | |
| But that moment when you were awarded the World Cup must have been for you an extraordinary moment. | |
| Well, thank you so much, Piers, for having me with you on the show. | |
| And welcome to Saudi Arabia. | |
| I can't believe that it's your first time. | |
| I know. | |
| You've traveled the whole world. | |
| But I think it's the right time to come and to talk about sports because you're a big fan of sports and I think it's a good topic to talk about. | |
| Yeah, thank you for the introduction and looking forward 10 years from now, it actually passes very quickly. | |
| We still have a lot of work to do in preparation to achieve what we want to achieve, hopefully, in the World Cup. | |
| I think the first impression that we had was just kind of a weight that was gone because a lot of people don't know that we've started working on the bid and wanting to host the World Cup, see what the issues are, how can we prepare for it and so on since 2018. | |
| So we really prepared very early on with an ambition that one day we would host the World Cup. | |
| And this comes all within the 2030 vision and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's vision and hosting international events, what can we do and so on and to develop sports in the kingdom. | |
| So we've been working tirelessly for six years, monthly meetings with His Royal Highness about details and what could work, what doesn't work and so on. | |
| And there wasn't even actually a bid regulation that came up. | |
| So we looked at the previous bid regulations, what can we take from there, what can we know in terms of the specifications of the facilities, what goes into preparation in terms of logistics, transportation, hotels, healthcare, everything that comes into that. | |
| And I think also what made us very well prepared is that it was all planned within the 2030 vision. | |
| So everything that we're doing as part of the 2030 vision, whether we host the World Cup or not, is all projects that are been submitted to the government and planned to deliver on by 2030. | |
| So hopefully by 2030 all of the preparation would be done. | |
| We'll have some stadiums to finish later on after that. | |
| And then we looked at the capacity because it will be 48 countries participating. | |
| Which is the most that any individual nation has ever hosted. | |
| So America obviously has three countries hosting with Mexico and Canada and they have the same number which is the highest ever. | |
| But you're the only country to take it on yourself. | |
| That's a lot, 48 countries. | |
| Yes, but Saudi is a big country as well, geographically, and it's a different territories with different cultures and so on. | |
| So it will be a nice diversity for the fans to travel throughout the kingdom. | |
| And I think for us, that's what we want. | |
| We want to welcome the world to come to Saudi. | |
| We want to show them what Saudi is. | |
| And what better way to put it in the biggest event in the world, which is the World Cup. | |
| So that moment, just, you know, when you work that long and then suddenly it's nailed that you have it. | |
| I don't think anyone can express what they really feel at the moment, but it's a moment of joy, it's a moment of pride that we represented the nation in a good way and hopefully that we can deliver on hosting the best World Cup experience that you'll ever have. | |
| How helpful is it to you that Qatar became the first Middle Eastern country to host a World Cup? | |
| Because I was there for a week and I was very impressed. | |
| I thought it was an excellent World Cup. | |
| Many people who went agreed with that, including a lot of professional football legends I spoke to. | |
| And it kind of, I guess, showed you where the lines of attack are going to come about Saudi Arabia. | |
| You know what they are, and we'll discuss those. | |
| But Qatar went through all that as well. | |
| What did you think of the Qatar World Cup? | |
| What lessons do you think you learned from that? | |
| I think they did an amazing job. | |
| I was there the whole time and I think in terms of organization it was one of the best that you can achieve. | |
| And I think they had a really big opportunity that you can actually attend all the matches of the World Cup. | |
| And I think Gianni did that by going the first half-to-one match even. | |
| I know people who walk to all the stadiums. | |
| Yeah, and I don't think there were any issues in terms of hosting the, or they had, for sure they would have had some small issues and organization and so on, but from what we've seen, it was exceptional. | |
| And we supported them with some of the know-how that we have. | |
| We've been there, our fans were there. | |
| So we learned a lot and we work with them as we speak to learn from their experience as well what worked, what didn't work. | |
| You can think of a lot of good ideas, but will it work on the ground or not? | |
| But you can't compare. | |
| Qatar, it was all hosted in a small territory. | |
| But when you look at Saudi, there's travel time, there's a lot of logistics that come in, a lot of different, and the population is much bigger. | |
| There are 15 stadiums planned for the World Cup. | |
| Yes. | |
| And my understanding is eight of them will be in Riyadh. | |
| So in a sense, Riyadh will be a kind of version of Qatar. | |
| But it's the other seven venues. | |
| So the first question fans will ask, well, how far do we have to travel? | |
| What's the furthest distance? | |
| How do you get there? | |
| All that kind of thing. | |
| The whole logistics system that we're working on, we have international airports all over the country in the destinations that we'll have the stadiums and where the group stages are going to be held and all the matches linked by airlines, buses and some which will have train connectivity as well. | |
| So the longest that you'll travel by plane would be two hours. | |
| And we think that that's going to give you a good time to travel between matches and so on. | |
| But also 60% of the population around the world is only eight hours away from Saudi. | |
| Is that right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| It's an amazing example. | |
| So that's an amazing number that you certainly very easy to get here from England, I know that. | |
| Exactly. | |
| And I think the nice thing about it is that you won't have any jet lags. | |
| Three hours ahead of the UK. | |
| Exactly. | |
| Eight hours ahead of America. | |
| So they may find it a bit difficult. | |
| But I think it's in terms of connectivity, you'll have, and we've laid that out in our bid. | |
| What do we plan on doing from now to then to connect all of these cities together and to make sure that the fan experience is of the highest that they would enjoy and entertain and have the most memorable experience that they can do? | |
| Well, that brings me to the biggest question of all. | |
| Actually, probably the second biggest. | |
| We'll come to the biggest. | |
| But for fans, the big question will be when are you having this tournament? | |
| Because Qatar obviously went for a winter tournament. | |
| That causes a lot of issues with some of the leagues. | |
| Premier League in the UK didn't like it. | |
| Some of the European leagues didn't like it. | |
| Very disruptive to their normal domestic leagues. | |
| But in terms of the temperatures, I was there for a week. | |
| It was very pleasant, a bit like it is here now, like in the early 70s, 20 odd degrees centigrade and so on. | |
| It's a big ongoing debate. | |
| What are you going to do? | |
| I mean, have you made a decision yet about whether this is going to be in your summer where it could be 40 degrees Celsius or the winter? | |
| Well, as I said, Saudi is huge. | |
| So even if you come in the summer in the south, where one of the stadiums and some of the group stages are going to be there, it's the same temperature as we are today. | |
| And it's much cooler than where we are in Riyadh during the summer. | |
| But that's a debate that we're still having with FIFA. | |
| And I'm sure that the ultimate goal would be what would be the best experience for the fans to come and attend. | |
| But also, you know, we have a 10-month league as well that they play in different climates and so on. | |
| So it's not an issue about the temperature that big of an issue. | |
| I think we should put the right steps into delivering the right necessary accommodation and services that are there. | |
| And, you know, when we looked at what happened in Qatar, it was a success, even that it happened during the time that it happened. | |
| And everyone went on with their business and it didn't affect anyone in a big way. | |
| And some actually claimed that the matches were actually better at that time because it was like in the beginning of the season and the athletes were at their peak performance instead of end of a season. | |
| Yeah, the counter-argument from the clubs, of course, is that the players come back exhausted. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And they were moaning and whining about that. | |
| We used it as an excuse to ask or my team. | |
| But it's an interesting debate because I could imagine the fan experience, which you talk about as wanting to be the most important thing. | |
| A lot of fans, if they come and it's 40 degrees Celsius walking around, they will not be used to that. | |
| And that brings with it actually probably legitimate health issues as well. | |
| 100%. | |
| And we're looking at what would be the best experience. | |
| Honestly, I don't know. | |
| I mean, we still have a long way to decide on that, and a lot could change in the next 10 years, even with leagues and so on. | |
| But I think the experience that we had in Qatar showcased that it can happen and it can happen in a proper way and nobody big time got affected with it. | |
| And they still complain about the athletes and how many matches they have during a normal season. | |
|
Safety and Access for All
00:07:53
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| So that's why we're still debating this with FIFA. | |
| And I think it will be a joint decision to be taken by everyone. | |
| And we want to share this with everyone to have the best experience for the number one global event in the world, which is the FIFA World Cup. | |
| The big question in Qatar, particularly for English fans, was, well, can we have a drink? | |
| And they were going to be allowed one right to the point that the tournament began. | |
| And then, I think, a day or two before, suddenly it was announced no alcohol. | |
| It was not complete ban. | |
| You could go to some bars out on the sticks a bit and get a drink. | |
| Saudi, obviously, alcohol is illegal here. | |
| Like you say, 10 years is a long time. | |
| I mean, given the rate of evolution of this country in the last 10 years, I wouldn't say anything as a guarantee. | |
| But as things stand, is it likely that alcohol will be prohibited here during the World Cup? | |
| Well, it is now, so I can speak about now. | |
| But I think that the most important thing is how will it affect our event? | |
| And we don't see any effect. | |
| I mean, we've hosted more than 100 international events as we speak. | |
| Everyone has come and enjoyed it. | |
| And it's become really a family environment of attending to these events that people come and enjoy. | |
| And I know that some fans would, you know, for them, it's something that they look up to and they want to be part of that and to be part of their experience. | |
| But we don't see that it's an issue, honestly. | |
| You know, you've mentioned Qatar and what happened. | |
| A lot attended. | |
| They enjoyed the matches. | |
| I think the stats also reflect in a positive way that some of the chaos that happens around some fans and so on. | |
| Well, there were zero, I think, arrests of English fans at a football tournament. | |
| This is unprecedented. | |
| I mean, when you think of the terrible scenes, our Euro's final, the last one was just awful. | |
| I was there, absolutely horrendous. | |
| And I've got to say, the experience in Qatar was so much better. | |
| Just to be able to experience going very safely and no one getting drunk and fighting and misbehaving was a nice change. | |
| I think that will be the ultimate goal for everyone, to have a good time, to enjoy. | |
| And I don't think that will be an issue for us in the World Cup. | |
| So I think we should focus on the fan experience more than anything else. | |
| I mean, we know that we can deliver on something spectacular from what we hosted so far. | |
| So it hasn't really been an issue for us. | |
| There will be two groups of people that will be concerned about their safety here. | |
| One is women. | |
| There will be a lot of women who maybe have never been to Saudi who say, well, how safe am I going to be? | |
| Can I walk around on my own? | |
| Do I have to have some form of male guardian with me? | |
| Will I be allowed to drive if I want it? | |
| All these sort of questions that you know you're going to be asked. | |
| What's the answer? | |
| What's your message to women from outside the region who come here for the World Cup? | |
| Well, I think that women today in Saudi Arabia have the most rights that they've ever had. | |
| And the reforms that have been done in the past eight years, more than 150 reforms, they're more independent, or they are independent. | |
| They can actually open their own businesses. | |
| They can have their own access to their own lives without any guardianship. | |
| They're no more guardian. | |
| You don't need to have a male guardian to walk around in Saudi as a woman. | |
| That has changed. | |
| And that whole change is... | |
| People probably don't know that. | |
| Exactly. | |
| And I see it sometimes in the media. | |
| People still talk about that. | |
| But that has changed. | |
| They're more independent. | |
| And Saudi is one of the safest countries in the world, even with the numbers and the ranking within the G20 categorization and so on. | |
| We guarantee everyone's safety. | |
| It's something very important for us, not just for women, but for everyone within the kingdom. | |
| And we make sure that we put the right regulations to make sure that everyone comes and enjoy. | |
| Nobody's going to ask you where you're going, who you are, what you're doing. | |
| And women drive here now? | |
| Yeah, for sure. | |
| And any woman can get a license? | |
| Yes. | |
| And they can attend any event that they would like, whether it was sporting or any other event. | |
| They have independent lives today, that they can be more independent and reflect on themselves and even divorce. | |
| They can ask for a divorce if they wanted. | |
| Are they allowed to get one? | |
| Yes. | |
| By law. | |
| So they can. | |
| They can. | |
| I know that a lot don't know about what the reforms that have happened, but there is a lot of reforms that happened in the past eight years, thanks to the leadership and His Royal Highness the Conference with the 2030 vision that have fixed a lot of these things that we see the strives today. | |
| I was at the Al Nasser match last night at Cristiano Ronaldo as his club there, so it's very famous around the world. | |
| There were lots of women in the audience, in the crowd there. | |
| That wouldn't have happened two years ago. | |
| Women weren't allowed into stadiums. | |
| That's a big change. | |
| You're still a young man in many ways, but are you surprised yourself at the speed of change in the last 10 years? | |
| I mean, if you tried to have this interview 10 years ago, these would be very different answers you'd be giving me. | |
| I didn't understand why they weren't allowed, is the question. | |
| And I think, you know, if you look at Mecca, the holiest site in the Islamic world, women and men are doing the pilgrimage and they're going together. | |
| So why is the football stadium not allowed to go there? | |
| But these were the laws. | |
| So they had to abide with them. | |
| And I don't think that everyone understood, or a lot of people did not understand why we had these laws. | |
| And I think this is where the evolution of the 2030 vision came in and fixed these things. | |
| Today, the environment within the stadiums is much bigger, is much more entertaining for families going in there. | |
| And a newlywed that decides their weekend to go and enjoy something on the weekend before the husband would think twice whether to go to a football match or take his family out for dinner, let's say, or take them out and spend time with them. | |
| Because he couldn't take them. | |
| Because he couldn't take them. | |
| And that all changed in 2018, just before women were allowed to attend, to drive. | |
| So, you know, we started with that process and it just happened overnight. | |
| Now we see the stadiums filled with families attending, even with kids going to the stadiums. | |
| Yeah, I saw it last time. | |
| Yeah, and it's created really. | |
| So it's changed even society and the relationship between men and women and attending these events and so on. | |
| And it made the environment in the stadiums much better because they can go as a family and enjoy a weekend watching Cristiano Ronaldo with their kids and have entertain a match and then get on with their weekend. | |
| So a lot of these changes, you know, I think there was always this question is why? | |
| And we never understood it. | |
| It sounds like you were asking that question yourself. | |
| I did, yeah, to myself. | |
| And when we discuss it, I didn't understand why they weren't allowed to go to the stadiums. | |
| And, you know, it takes strong leadership to take such difficult questions within society. | |
| And that's the representation of the leadership that we have today. | |
| And I think that it's because it's for a good cause and it works for the society. | |
| It makes it better for the people. | |
| And that's why the decision was taken. | |
| And no effects at all. | |
| It just happened overnight. | |
|
Addressing Past Restrictions
00:12:51
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|
| So we're very happy with that. | |
| I'll come to women's sport because I know it's been very fast growing here. | |
| The other sector of the community, if you like, globally, that are concerned are the LGBT community. | |
| It's illegal to be gay here, as it was in Qatar. | |
| In fact, as it was for a quarter of all the countries that reached the last 32 in the World Cup finals in Qatar, as I pointed out to people, it was illegal to be gay in England in 1966 when we won the World Cup last. | |
| So, you know, it's been an evolution of a lot of countries, this issue. | |
| But what do you say to gay people who may want, there'll be a lot of gay football fans who want to come to the World Cup. | |
| Will they be welcome here? | |
| Everyone's welcome. | |
| And we've said that in the past. | |
| And we've said that to all the events that we've hosted. | |
| As I told you, we have more than 100 international events that we've hosted. | |
| And we haven't had any issues with anyone from that community. | |
| Everyone's welcome to come to Saudi. | |
| Nobody's going to ask you other than what the information in your passport is. | |
| You have full privacy of your thoughts and your beliefs and so on. | |
| And nobody will do that. | |
| All that we ask is that we have our rules and regulations and our culture that we ask people to respect. | |
| It's the same as when we go anywhere else in the world. | |
| We respect everything, even if I don't believe in it or I don't believe that some of the rules and regulations abide by what I believe in, but I respect it because I'm there and I showcase. | |
| What should people be careful about? | |
| If they're coming to Saudi Arabia, say they're coming for six weeks to watch the whole World Cup or however many weeks it'll end up being, what should they just be careful about doing? | |
| What would you advise them not to do? | |
| Well, I think we have slightly, we abide by the Islamic law and Islamic tradition and so on. | |
| But what you abide with, I cannot enforce that on you. | |
| And that's what I abide with and so on. | |
| So I think that they shouldn't be really careful of a lot of things. | |
| It's just that they should abide by the regulations that are there. | |
| I'm sure they know a lot of it that are there. | |
| And just enjoy the event for the event and keep it sporting and enjoy sports as it is. | |
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| You know, I think that Allah tried to hijack sports in a lot of ways for political reasons and we don't mix that at all, even with our political stance towards our sporting stance towards certain things. | |
| We've had issues with other neighboring countries that we didn't have any relationship with them, but they compete, they come because we believe that sports has nothing to do with sport. | |
| Well, you did what you did in recent times with Qatar, of course. | |
| 100%, yeah. | |
| Saudi had major problems with Qatar, and there you were, as it turned out, beating the eventual world champions in Qatar. | |
| And probably the greatest moment in the history of Saudi sport, actually. | |
| So that shows you an example of what you're talking about. | |
| 100%. | |
| And as I said, we've been successful in hosting more than 100 international events that hosted people from all over the world, more than 160 countries and nationalities and so on. | |
| And everyone has come, everyone has had fun. | |
| All colours, all colours. | |
| All colours. | |
| All sexuality. | |
| Yes. | |
| And no one's done. | |
| And no one has any issues. | |
| All what you ask is respect our culture and what goes with it. | |
| That's it. | |
| The big issue that Qatar had was that in the construction of all their stadiums, a lot of migrant workers died. | |
| I spoke to some of their leaders at the time and they conceded it was wrong that too many migrant workers were dying in the process of building those big stadia. | |
| You have more steady you're building here because you've got more teams playing, obviously. | |
| And you've got a lot of migrant workers here from all over the world, from the Ball to Bangladesh to wherever. | |
| And they come here in big numbers. | |
| I would imagine that you've looked at what happened in California and you want to avoid the same criticism coming your way. | |
| You've already been getting a bit of it. | |
| Human rights groups have been putting out reports that say that a lot of migrant workers have been killed already. | |
| What is your response to that? | |
| Well, it is a serious issue, and we have looked at it. | |
| And for us, I think just hosting the World Cup, one of the reasons is to show us what the issues are, because sometimes you can go on by developing a nation and not realizing what the issues are. | |
| And I think these are things that we take very seriously. | |
| And I think to pinpoint that specifically is that a lot of the reforms that happened in the past eight years are workers' reforms that abide by law to make sure that we have the right system, that everyone is safe and everyone has their rights within the kingdom, living in the kingdom. | |
| You mentioned we have a lot of workers, 40% of our population is expats. | |
| So that's a big population. | |
| We want them to live a healthy and prosperous lifestyle within the kingdom. | |
| So we put a lot of reforms towards the workers' program that we've had. | |
| We're part of the ILO, which is the International Labour Organization, which the UK, Japan also are part of that, and we abide by the regulations that are there. | |
| We work closely with them. | |
| I think there's a lot of improvement that needs to be done. | |
| And we are looking at it in a serious manner. | |
| And we are taking the right steps towards that. | |
| And today, we have around 660,000 entities that have to register all of their contracts to the Ministry of Labour, and we monitor, which is around 9 million contracts, that we monitor, we can audit, we can make sure that they get their pay, we can make sure that they're being taken care of. | |
| Also, that we make sure that there is a connection that we can hear from them, what their complaints are, that they can complain about other things that are there. | |
| And when you look at the numbers, you know, I hear and read some of these articles, but when you look at the numbers, the percentage of death in the labor force is 1.1% to every 100,000. | |
| So we are one of the lowest countries in the world in that percentage. | |
| Needless to say, we are looking at it in a serious way. | |
| We are putting the right measures to make sure that we don't fall into this issue in the future, especially as you mentioned, with a lot of these developments and going on, not just in sports, but also in other GAGA projects that we're working on. | |
| I mean, if you look at the D'A project, we had 50 million hours of no fatalities within the D'Iya project. | |
| For those who don't know about that project, it's a UNESCO heritage site that is within close to Riyald, but it's actually the first capital of the Saudi state. | |
| It was demolished during the Ottoman Empire, and that's why the Saudi state moved to Riyal. | |
| But now it's a UNESCO site, and there's a full residential, sporting, entertainment development that's happening there. | |
| So hopefully, when you come for the World Cup, you'll get to enjoy the facilities and the services that they provide over there. | |
| So that's one of the GEGA projects that we have. | |
| Another one is Gadiya as well. | |
| I think 20 million hours without any fatalities that are happening. | |
| But it's obviously something you're concerned about. | |
| Yes, yes, we're aware of it and we're looking into it. | |
| For sure, there's a lot of, you know, there's room to improve, but we want to work with the ILO and with all the entities and with all the right people to make sure that we put the right steps to, because, you know, welfare and health being for our workers and everyone working in Saudi is very important to us. | |
| What do you say to those who go, all you're doing is sports washing. | |
| This is all about sort of airbrushing the human rights issues that Saudi has. | |
| Same criticism was leveled at Qatar, of course, that it's about sports washing. | |
| I watched the Crown Prince's interview with Brett Baer at Fox News, and he was very direct. | |
| He was very like, people want to say that, fine, I don't care. | |
| But then he outlined what he believed it was about, which was that actually, self-evidently, the oil is running out. | |
| That has been what your big revenue earn has been, of course, for a long time. | |
| It is running out, and you have to replace that revenue somehow. | |
| And you've identified sport, tourism, and entertainment as the best way potentially to replace the dwindling oil revenues. | |
| So that's the argument that comes from people in Saudi. | |
| But what do you say to those outside who say, come off it, this is all about sports washing? | |
| Well, I mean, as His Royal Highness the Crown Prince mentioned in that interview, what is the reflection of hosting these events in the kingdom? | |
| You know, we talk about in 2017, we had 32 federations. | |
| Today we have 97 federations. | |
| We talk about women's sports, the possibility to host women events. | |
| We just hosted WTA a month ago or just more than a month ago, and the experience that the players came with. | |
| We had the same allegations before they come and when they came. | |
| And you saw what they talked about when they were here. | |
| But today we have 50,000 tennis players and schools. | |
| I thought it's very significant that Billie Jean King, who's probably one of the great spokeswomen for tennis and for the LGBT community in world sport, that she came out and was pretty supportive. | |
| I was surprised and then thought that was a very significant moment, actually. | |
| There was a moment of people kind of drawing a bit of a line in the sand and saying, actually, we want to be part of this now. | |
| Saudi's investing billions and billions into sport. | |
| And we think that's a better thing than the critics would suggest. | |
| 100%, because they can see how it benefits the sport directly, but also how it does it benefit the people living in Saudi Arabia in a positive way. | |
| And I don't think anyone around the world doesn't want benefit for anyone to try to come in and to see what we can develop from that. | |
| I think, you know, just as I mentioned, we have 50,000 students playing tennis today in schools. | |
| That didn't happen a year ago because of hosting these events and because of these stars coming and they can aspire to be like these stars and so on, to have opportunities to get there. | |
| So that's the real impact that we see. | |
| You're a big fan of boxing and you attended in Los Angeles the boxing match and so on. | |
| What I loved about it, I have to be honest, I mean it was a big boxing event in LA last summer. | |
| It was the Riyadh season, it was called. | |
| But in the middle of it, I didn't know this was going to happen. | |
| Up popped M ⁇ M to do a half-hour concert. | |
| And I was like, this is great. | |
| And I do like the way that you guys are trying to combine the two things, sport and entertainment. | |
| You see it a bit like at the Super Bowl in America. | |
| But you don't see it a lot, actually. | |
| I mean, in English football, for example, you don't get any entertainment to interfere with the football. | |
| Sometimes watching my team, I wish we did. | |
| But is that a deliberate strategy to try and marry the two things? | |
| Yeah, I mean it's all part of the 2030 vision within the quality of life programme within the 2030 vision where we're all in that program to make sure that all the events that we have are connected together to deliver the optimal experience that you can have. | |
| But also to enhance the entertainment. | |
| At the end of the day, it's all entertainment. | |
| Of course. | |
| And to deliver on the best. | |
| And the standards that we have from the crown prince is always deliver on the best. | |
| I don't want any half jobs being done. | |
| He wants the best to be done in the right way. | |
| And do you accept that an element of sports washing is inevitable, whether it's intended or not, in the sense that obviously if you put on great sporting events, great entertainment events and all these things, that inevitably it's going to give a bit of a halo effect to any country that does it. | |
| I mean, look, I remember the London Olympics in 2012. | |
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Delivering Entertainment Standards
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| I remember how it made us all feel in London. | |
| It made us feel great and it put a great halo over the city, over the country. | |
| The Queen was leading it. | |
| You know, James Bond was involved. | |
| And it felt great. | |
| I've got to say, it disappeared pretty quickly afterwards, that feeling, so be careful. | |
| But, you know, in a way, every country that puts on these events, of course, you're trying to show off your country at its best. | |
| So do you just accept that as part of it, inevitably, you're going to get that? | |
| Yeah, for sure. | |
| I mean, like, you know, as you mentioned, anywhere the world you go to, you get that experience and that feeling that happens. | |
| But also, I think it's also that we're trying to invite the world to come and see Saudi Arabia. | |
| And I think these events attract people to come. | |
| And, you know, there's a perception about Saudi, and you hear a lot in the media about Saudi. | |
| I think 100% have never met anyone that did not come to Saudi in the past eight years and did not change or spoke positively in a way. | |
| What are you are the most annoying misconceptions, as you would see it, about this country? | |
| That all of these reforms did not happen. | |
| You know, when they talk about the women's guardianship, when they talk about the kafala system for the workers, that was all lifted. | |
| It was all gone. | |
| It's no longer there. | |
| And I can't believe people still talk about it. | |
| It's been gone for years. | |
| I mean, I was interested, for example, that for this interview, I, never having been to Saudi, I thought, well, they're probably going to have a lot of restrictions. | |
| They're going to tell me you can't talk about this, can't talk about that. | |
| Nothing. | |
| And I'm saying that for the record because I think it's significant. | |
| You haven't told me I can't ask you anything, right? | |
| You haven't got any restrictions. | |
| In fact, you didn't want me to have any restrictions. | |
| I think, I mean, a lot of people think that Saudi suppresses free speech. | |
| And I think there's merit to that argument in many ways as a journalist. | |
| Certainly, I wouldn't have the same freedom as a journalist here that I do back home. | |
| But certainly in terms of our interactions, you've made no effort to censor me. | |
| I mean, you couldn't, because the show's called uncensored. | |
| But I was struck by that. | |
| No, but that's who we are. | |
| And, you know, as I said, there is a perception about Saudi. | |
| And a lot of people talk about Saudi and they've never been to Saudi. | |
| Which also is mind-blowing to me as well. | |
| You know, how can you talk about somewhere or anyone that you never met, you've never talked to, you've never been to? | |
| Kat heard the same thing. | |
| Exactly. | |
| I just knew the ones that were... | |
| In fact, they said the most criticism came from the UK and UK journalists. | |
| And it was interesting to me. | |
| I did wonder, have any of you been there, actually? | |
| Actually physically got on a plane and gone there to experience it? | |
| Because the experience that people had at the World Cup didn't bear much relation to what was being written back home. | |
| I didn't feel. | |
| Yeah, but they're all welcome to come to Saudi, who's never been to Saudi. | |
| And that's a discussion that I have with everyone that has any concerns with Saudi. | |
| There's a lot that they talk about in the media and so on. | |
| But come, see for yourself and then judge. | |
| And that will be very fair to me. | |
| But don't judge us and you don't know us and you've never been to Saudi. | |
| You were criticizing Saudi Arabia. | |
| You were a journalist from the outside. | |
| I know it's not something you aspire to be, but if you were, what do you still need to do? | |
| What do you still need, do you think, to work on to improve as part of this very fast-moving evolution that's going on? | |
| And I'm going to come to your own experience of that because you've seen it firsthand, having lived here for 40-odd years. | |
| But when you look at Saudi Arabia now, where do you want it to get to quite quickly? | |
| What do you think are still the things that are probably? | |
| I think we should be more outspoken about who we are. | |
| I think we should be more connected to the world, you know, and to be present. | |
| And I think we're doing that, but not as to the same pace as we're doing compared to a lot of things that we're getting. | |
| Maybe because it's in our culture that we're a bit shy and we need a bit of time to break the ice, as they say. | |
| But once that is done, then everything is open. | |
| And I think the hospitality that the Saudi people have strikes a lot of people when they first come here. | |
| You hear a lot of crazy stories about certain things that happen during the events. | |
| Just last week we had the Dakar Radi, and I'll give you just a small glimpse to that. | |
| And one of the competitors on a motorbike dropped his phone in the desert. | |
| And a guy found this phone. | |
| And he actually followed the whole race for like two days. | |
| Two days. | |
| Yeah, two days to find the person. | |
| Really? | |
| Yeah. | |
| And he found who he was. | |
| So he connected to his wife through Instagram, who was in Australia. | |
| And she told them that this is the number because he had to come up, he had to issue a new SIM card because his phone is not with him. | |
| And he actually reports it, and you can see it on his social media that he's been following. | |
| Oh, we came to this area and we didn't find him. | |
| We need to look for him. | |
| But in the end, he delivered the phone to him. | |
| And to make sure that it was his phone, he asked him to put the passcode and he put it in. | |
| But that was genuine. | |
| That was completely out, you know, that he wanted to do that. | |
| The Saudi guy that did that. | |
| I mean, I found it since I've been here, not very long, I'm saying for the week, but people have been very welcoming, very hospitable. | |
| And whether that's people that I would expect to be, because I'm their guest, but also just the public as I've been walking around, going to shops and talking to people. | |
| What I don't know is what happens when you get away from the glitz and glamour of the five-star hotels and me coming here. | |
| But you should go. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Maybe I should. | |
| You should come for a holiday and just experience the people because I think it's our biggest asset. | |
| It's the people, it's the population. | |
| It's how friendly and how hospitable they are. | |
| And young. | |
| Exactly. | |
| 70% of Saudis are under 35. | |
| Yes. | |
| It's an amazing statistic. | |
| Only 4% of your population is over 65, I think, which is extraordinary. | |
| Yeah, we have a very young population. | |
| And we need to get them busy with good stuff and for the future, health-wise, and also to get them to have a strong and prosperous society for the future. | |
| Do people get free health care here? | |
| Yes. | |
| And education? | |
| And education is free. | |
| You can have private as well if you want to. | |
| You can have private, yes. | |
| But there's free for everyone. | |
| But there's free for everyone. | |
| Essentially the same kind of system as the UK. | |
| Yes. | |
| For health and education. | |
| Yes. | |
| And you can have private, of course, but there is healthcare for everyone. | |
| And also, I think that's the dynamic movement that you see that is happening. | |
| And I think everyone embraces this evolution with the 2030 vision. | |
| And that's what made also a lot of things move very quickly, is that it's that young population. | |
| Well, you have a young leader and you have a young population who understands what they want. | |
| Yeah, yeah. | |
| And he also has a young population. | |
| Yes. | |
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Free Healthcare and Education
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| And so there's a kind of relationship there. | |
| But also everyone's connected today through social media. | |
| They see all of these events, sporting events, and they see what's happening around the world. | |
| And they want it here. | |
| I'm sure that a lot of Saudis went to Qatar to attend the World Cup where they never had the chance to travel to go to other places in the world, but just because it's next door, they can drive there, then they went there. | |
| And imagine of that opportunity what will happen to the Saudis who can't travel, who can't go to these places and bringing these events to them. | |
| But also when they see it on the ground, the effect of change that happens within them and the demand that comes very quickly after that. | |
| Sometimes we have to catch up on what they want in terms of facilities and in terms of setting the right programs. | |
| And I remember I was just mentioning before you attended the boxing in Los Angeles. | |
| And just to reflect to that in a very simple note is that when we had the first boxing event in 2018, it was I think Joshua Ruiz fight. | |
| And we had six gyms in Saudi that had boxing. | |
| I know that boxing is big in the UK, in the US, and a lot of places, but in Saudi it wasn't a big sport. | |
| And it was kind of a new sport to us. | |
| Now I'm sure there's more than 100 gyms that have boxing into them. | |
| We've hosted after that, look how many boxing events. | |
| We've even sponsored boxing events abroad. | |
| But the number that struck me the most was the increase in participation by 300% in that sport. | |
| And that's the effect and that's the... | |
| Have you seen the same with tennis and golf? | |
| With all sports. | |
| You know, we're talking about golf and to see the effect of what's happening in golf. | |
| And, you know, I remember the golf course that we have here in Riyadh, hardly anyone talks about. | |
| Now it's fully booked. | |
| And you can't go. | |
| I think there's a waiting time for a month to get a time. | |
| I'm a big golf fan. | |
| I'm going to say I'm a little sad about the standoff between live golf and the PGA. | |
| I want it resolved. | |
| I think all golf fans want to see the best players back regularly competing against each other. | |
| It just doesn't work having them all split most of the time. | |
| What do you feel about that? | |
| I totally agree. | |
| And I think that, you know, for the sake of the sport, I think, you know, nobody wants any issues within any sports or organizations. | |
| And I think, and I'm sure they will eventually come to an agreement to reach to something that will prosper the sport of golf. | |
| I think that's the benefit that everyone should look for. | |
| And how do you develop the sport in a new way or how do you come with new ideas? | |
| And how do you go to new territories to spread these events? | |
| Is there a lot of hypocrisy, if you're honest? | |
| Like, take the golf. | |
| You know, I found that some of the PGA side, when they put the old moral halo on, I'm like, well, hang on, you do play in China, right? | |
| I don't see you crying about oppression of Uyghur Muslims, for example. | |
| You seem quite happy to associate yourselves with China, and yet you're making a big fuss about the morality of live golf because they're in bed with the Saudis. | |
| Do you think it's hypocritical? | |
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Developing New Sports Territories
00:16:16
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| In a way, yes. | |
| And I think, you know, a lot of people don't criticize themselves to see what the issue is. | |
| They just criticize what they don't like and then they realize that they're doing the same thing. | |
| But I think that a lot have matured in the past years towards that actually, no, is it benefiting the sport? | |
| Then that's what we should be looking at. | |
| And I think there is where we should focus on, you know, today, with whoever comes in, investing or developing different sports, is that is it benefiting the sport? | |
| Is this sport going to grow? | |
| Is it going to attract more players? | |
| Is it going to attract more athletes to come in? | |
| Is it going to go to more territories around the world? | |
| Then that's what we should be focusing on to develop this sport because any growth is good for anyone, for everyone. | |
| Football is obviously getting bigger and bigger here in Saudi Arabia. | |
| I feel partly responsible. | |
| The lady should be thanking me really, because without my interview with Cristiano Ronaldo that led to him leaving Manchester United, he wouldn't be here leading the revolution. | |
| But I know, you know, I spoke to him briefly last night, but I know that he, since he's come, he's loved it, he's loved the experience. | |
| His family have loved it. | |
| He's enjoyed building a brand new, well not a brand new league, but certainly taking it to a brand new level. | |
| He now believes it's the fourth best league in the world, certainly comparative to say the French league. | |
| Some agree, some don't agree, but certainly the rate of change and improvement has been extraordinary here. | |
| How big a deal, obviously in terms of money, it was a very big deal. | |
| Ronaldo became the highest paid athlete in the world with that deal. | |
| But how big a deal was it to get someone of his stature to come and lead the revolution in Saudi for football? | |
| Well, thank you for doing that interview and help with that. | |
| But I think he's an exceptional athlete and he's an exceptional role model to everyone around the world. | |
| And you see that, and we saw that the first day he came. | |
| The impact that we have in just being visible, just being in the world's eye that you're there and how do we need to deliver on that. | |
| So a lot of progressed with him in a lot of ways. | |
| And I remember that we discussed a lot regarding how do we uplift the league, how do we uplift the club that he plays with, facility-wise, all of these things. | |
| You know, he's part of our contribution for the 2034 ambassador to the 2034 World Cup. | |
| So as an athlete, to have someone that has lived through it all and has won everything in it is a unique situation. | |
| Do you know what's amazing? | |
| I watched him last night. | |
| I said to him, I want you to score a hat-trick and then dedicate it to me. | |
| And he scored one and had two disallowed. | |
| I was like, we were so close. | |
| I'm sure he'll be. | |
| And the last one was unbelievably great goal. | |
| But he was fuming, raging about the last goal because he knew it was a good goal. | |
| He knew it would be doing the rounds on social media. | |
| And, you know, fueling yet again the myth of Cristiano. | |
| And to see him so angry at the end was just extraordinary. | |
| You think this guy's 40 next month. | |
| He's got nothing left to prove. | |
| He's broken almost every record in football. | |
| And yet it still matters to him. | |
| But that's what makes him who he is. | |
| And that's what makes him achieve all of this. | |
| I think that fire and that desire from within to always keep on growing and delivering and being there. | |
| And I think that's the best role model that you can have for the youth. | |
| That even that you've won it all, he has won everything. | |
| And he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. | |
| But he still has that fire within him to move on and to develop and to keep on giving. | |
| And I think that's the best example that you can have for an athlete. | |
| And that's what we want from our athletes to see. | |
| And we see it on the ground. | |
| Talking about the league, as soon as we signed with him, suddenly other players wanted to come. | |
| Then they started to come in Arbenzima, Mehris, all of the other players that started to want to come. | |
| But also the exposure that we have of the hundred and six, more than one hundred and sixty nations around the world are broadcasting the Saudi League today, the increase of revenue. | |
| Compared to how many before Christiano came? | |
| I think 10. | |
| Really, yeah. | |
| So that's the difference. | |
| And I noticed that Al Nasser Instagram account has 17 million followers. | |
| Exactly. | |
| I think before he came, it was like 2 million, I think. | |
| Less than 100%. | |
| So all the metrics go to the roof of how many t-shirts. | |
| You find his t-shirts around the world and so on. | |
| So people, you know, you're there in the sporting world that you're a spotlight today. | |
| And that puts a lot of responsibility on us to deliver on what people want as well. | |
| Is the strategy still to get these big-name marquee signings? | |
| Because one of the criticisms is that a lot of them are slightly older and that you've not been getting enough of the younger up-and-coming stars. | |
| So until you do that, you can't really compete with the best league. | |
| Do you accept that? | |
| That was some of the claims that were happening. | |
| But when you see some of the signings that the clubs have done in the past year, especially in the summer, most of them have been younger or 23 or younger than that. | |
| Our ambition with the league, and that's what we're working with them so hard, is to have it, because we believe in the sport and we believe in developing football and we believe that we should have a strong league like anywhere else in the world. | |
| And we think that we have the capabilities to do that and the reason to do it, which is the people. | |
| The fans are really big fans of football and that creates that economy or that commercialization that develops from it. | |
| So you have fans that attend the matches and then you have also the private sector coming in and creating that economy that can be sustainable for the future. | |
| And I think that's what we're looking mostly at. | |
| These players, of course, bring, they put the spotlight, you know, but also it shortcuts a lot of things that we could have done in five years. | |
| We did it in one year. | |
| You know, enhancing, you know, one of the benefits that I had was Stephen Gerrard coming to Al-Itifag. | |
| And I remember speaking to him and he was complaining about certain facilities and things that he needed, requirements from the club. | |
| And I told him, listen, just send me what is a standard? | |
| Because we don't know. | |
| You come from the Premier League. | |
| You know what the standard is. | |
| You know what you need as a professional coach to deliver on. | |
| So literally, he gave us a standard of what needs to be developed in terms of infrastructure, in terms of what is the system that needs to be done within a club and so on. | |
| And we've cascaded that on all the other clubs as well. | |
| And did he have a thing at the end that said, and I also want you to sign Moz Salah? | |
| My old team Liverpool? | |
| All clubs do that. | |
| All the coaches want that. | |
| Is he the biggest trophy right now? | |
| Because he's the most high-profile Muslim player in the world. | |
| He's arguably one of the best two or three players in the world. | |
| He hasn't signed a new contract yet. | |
| Is he the big prize? | |
| Well, definitely, because if he takes all the right boxes, even for us, would love to have him. | |
| He's Egyptian and we have a very good relationship. | |
| And we feel like we're one with the Egyptians as well from our culture and our history and so on. | |
| So to have Mohsalah or other players that are good role models would be a pleasure and a privilege to have in the Saudi League. | |
| Will it happen or not? | |
| That's up to the clubs to decide and to see what negotiations go on. | |
| But I think that at the end of the day, coming back to the league, is that we want the league to be within the top five watched and commercially driven leagues and strong leagues that people around the world aspire to want to play there in the Saudi league. | |
| And I don't see that there is any harm with that. | |
| And we can collaborate with everyone in Europe to make sure that we can deliver on that. | |
| With the World Cup bid, one of the controversial aspects of it was that there were no other serious bidders that came forward. | |
| And in the end, nobody bid against you. | |
| So you had a free run. | |
| Now, the FIFA evaluation report gave you a record high, 4.2 out of 5. | |
| You had the backing of 120 of FIFA's 211 members. | |
| And yet some have said there was a lack of transparency, that this all seemed to happen very quickly. | |
| How come Saudi just got away with this is what they're saying. | |
| What do you say to that? | |
| Well, as I mentioned before, I think a lot of people don't know that we've been working on it for us doing our homework. | |
| And as you know, as a lot of athletes, they don't just show up on the race day and decide to perform, and they do. | |
| They have to put a lot of performance and a lot of hard work before that to be ready on race day to deliver. | |
| We know about race days because you used to drive professionals. | |
| That's one of the... | |
| You sit in the Le Monde 24 hour, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| And I had to come to your craving for speed in a moment. | |
| But I learned that from racing. | |
| You can't just show up on a weekend and expect to deliver when you haven't put the time in because there's someone else putting it and being ready. | |
| And I think that we came really well prepared. | |
| We abide by the FIFA regulations. | |
| Everything was transparent. | |
| Everything was clear. | |
| We had the support. | |
| We lobbied properly with a lot of the countries to support our bid. | |
| And I think that's what sealed the deal, that we just came well prepared. | |
| Hey, Mike Baker here, host of the President's Daily Brief podcast. | |
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| I mean, people probably don't know this, a lot of people, that under the rotation policy, only bids from Asia and Oceania were considered for 2034. | |
| So that massively reduced the number of countries that could host it anyway. | |
| And countries like Australia were looking at it, but then didn't in the end. | |
| Would it have helped you if somebody else had bid in the end, do you think? | |
| It helped us in a way. | |
| In terms of the court of public opinion, the fact that nobody bid, it looked like, well, what have the Saudis done here? | |
| And the answer may be, of course, absolutely nothing. | |
| But the impression was you must have done something to scare everybody off. | |
| We talked to everyone and we explained to everyone that we want to bid. | |
| And we talked to all the federations. | |
| We talked to, and we prepared to it. | |
| And I think that's why nobody came in is because they saw how well prepared we were. | |
| And I tell you, we reviewed the US bid, we reviewed the Qatar bid, we reviewed all of these things. | |
| What are the issues? | |
| We didn't know because at the time what the bid regulations are, FIFA hasn't announced it yet. | |
| But we wanted to be prepared. | |
| At least they're going to go within, you know, they're going to move left or right, but within this parameter that is there. | |
| So we reviewed everything for six years that we prepared this file. | |
| And I think we just came well prepared and everyone knew that from the federations that we were there. | |
| And as I said, it was very transparent. | |
| It was very clear. | |
| FIFA was very clear about it, not just for 34, but also for 30. | |
| And as you mentioned, maybe because of the cycle was for Asia and Oceania to be the only candidates that could bid at the time has helped. | |
| Yes, it did, that we don't go into any bidding war with anyone else. | |
| But in the end, you have a really strong bid for 30, which will go to Portugal, Spain, Morocco, and South America. | |
| And it will highlight celebrating 100 years for FIFA as well, which I think will be an amazing experience between these three different destinations or continents. | |
| Before that, you have the US, of course, with the territory and going to the US and seeing how large the US is and knowing that you're not going to be able to do it. | |
| Do you think journalists are going to give the same scrutiny to US, Canada, and Mexico and their human rights records as you're going to get? | |
| No, but it is what it is. | |
| That's interesting, isn't it? | |
| Yeah. | |
| As many would say, if you look at Mexico, you look at a lot of America's foreign policy in the last 50 years, a lot of legitimate questions to be raised there. | |
| But I suspect we're not going to get the same negative. | |
| But it's not going to stop us from doing what's right and what we think is right for us. | |
| And I think everyone has the right to do that. | |
| And I think we're doing it in a way that we're open to the world and asking everyone to share this journey with us. | |
| Things change very quickly and some things won't. | |
| It will take time to change. | |
| But just give us the time to evolve and develop towards that. | |
| FIFA said that staging the tournament in the kingdom represented as a medium human rights risk. | |
| It claimed it had a good potential to act as a catalyst for reforms, which we know are ongoing. | |
| The Saudi bid had a good overall commitment to sustainability and was deemed low risk when it came to environmental protection. | |
| So that was all quite positive. | |
| Amnesty International condemned the decision to have the World Cup here in Saudi, issued a joint statement on behalf of 21 separate organizations, said FIFA's reckless decision to award the World Cup to Saudi Arabia without ensuring adequate human rights protections in place will put many lives at risk. | |
| That was their head of labor rights and sports, Steve Coburn. | |
| And they said, based on clear evidence to date, FIFA knows workers will be exploited and even die without fundamental reforms in Saudi Arabia and yet it's chosen to press ahead in regards. | |
| We've talked about the migrant worker issue, but just on the issue of human rights and what Amnesty International say, you know, a lot of people will think Amnesty International is a very respected organization and if they say that there are proper causes for concern. | |
| What do you say to people? | |
| Well I say that no one's perfect. | |
| Everyone's developing, everyone's working towards a better future for their nation and a lot of these issues that we face today a lot of nations have been through. | |
| You've mentioned some of them and how things have developed towards that. | |
| And we are doing what we think is right for us and for the people in the kingdom and what we think will develop to a better future for everyone in the kingdom, but also in the region. | |
| And I think that a lot of people talk about Saudi and have claims about Saudi, but they've never been here. | |
| They've never seen what the reality is. | |
| A lot of these claims, when you really dig deep into the cause of it, you'd find in the end that someone broke the law in the end to face any of these issues that arise, but the story is not told in full towards that. | |
| We have a legal system or judicial system that is completely independent, that is monitored by the Human Rights Watch in Saudi. | |
| Everyone has a right to defend themselves and so on in legal cases and so on. | |
| And we take these things very seriously to evolve in the right way. | |
| We talked about the workers and so on. | |
| And we are evolving. | |
| We are developing. | |
| We are moving forward towards that. | |
| Some things, as you mentioned, will move very quickly and so on. | |
| Some will take time for our culture and things to change. | |
| But we're just asking that respect us for who we are and believe in what we're doing because we've showcased that in the past with these reforms that are happening within the kingdom and we've delivered on it. | |
| And we will continue to work with the right organizations like the ILO and FIFA to make sure that we deliver on our role towards these accusations that are happening. | |
|
Athletes Beyond Politics
00:04:37
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| There have been calls for countries like Russia to be banned from the World Cup indefinitely at the moment, people are saying. | |
| If it came to it, would you be happy for Russia as things stand to compete in 2034? | |
| I mean that decision is with FIFA, it's not with Western. | |
| Would you be happy? | |
| But we don't mix politics with sports at all. | |
| You know, I've mentioned that some of the countries that we host, their clubs and some of their athletes that come to Saudi, we don't have any relation, any political relationship with them. | |
| But they still come and they still attend the events and so on. | |
| So we don't politicize or cast it. | |
| When you see the controversy over the cricket, for example, with Afghanistan, who have a men's team, but the Taliban have banned all women from competing in sports, so there's no women's team, which breaches, it would seem, the international, well, the ICC, the governing body of cricket, it breaches their rule that you must field a male and female team. | |
| England is you to play them very soon, actually. | |
| A lot of pressure building that maybe England should refuse to play, even though the Afghan men's team is not based in Afghanistan, it's based outside. | |
| That the principle should be if the Taliban are going to stop women competing in sport, then we shouldn't be encouraging playing them in the men's game. | |
| What do you think? | |
| I think the athlete shouldn't be a victim of political decisions. | |
| I think every athlete that wants to compete in any interview. | |
| That's my personal view, to be honest. | |
| And, you know, a lot of sanctions happen in the sports world and so on. | |
| But at the end of the day, for political reasons, and at the end of the day, the victims are the athlete. | |
| Nothing changed politically. | |
| But who missed an opportunity to go to a big tournament or an international event or Olympics or the World Cup because of a political decision where they've lived their whole life to deliver on this opportunity that they have. | |
| And he has no change in it. | |
| He can't change that. | |
| So the athletes won't be able to change that. | |
| So they shouldn't be used in a way to be politicized in a way. | |
| That's what I personally think. | |
| And I think not mixing politics with sport just leaves sports as natural as it is and welcoming to everyone and giving the opportunity to everyone to compete in sports. | |
| That should be the ideal, I think, way forward for these international. | |
| Would you be comfortable if Israel compete here? | |
| They do. | |
| They do already? | |
| Yeah, they do. | |
| And that's been ongoing since the end of the year. | |
| This has been a war in Gaza? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, they do. | |
| We have some Israeli athletes that come for some of the international events that we have. | |
| We have no issue with them coming and competing. | |
| That's what I'm saying, that we don't mix. | |
| Some of our athletes play against the Israeli teams in international events. | |
| And that's not a political decision at all. | |
| It's a sporting decision. | |
| That's how we look. | |
| We stand firmly with the Palestinian people and we've been speaking politically. | |
| The government has been speaking politically in support of the Palestinian people and doing everything for the Palestinian people. | |
| And we condemn the war in Palestine and Israel. | |
| But that has nothing to do with the sporting events. | |
| Donald Trump is the President of the United States again. | |
| He's a massive sports fan, loves his boxing, loves his golf, nearly lost his life on a golf course last summer. | |
| You know, is this a good thing? | |
| Do you think he obviously likes Saudi Arabia, has a good relationship with the Crown Prince? | |
| He's already said that it might be one of the first trips he makes. | |
| Is this a good thing that he's been re-elected for you guys? | |
| He loves sports, yes. | |
| That's what I can talk about. | |
| No, as you mentioned, he's a big sports fan, he believes in it. | |
| And I think that the relationship between Saudi and the US has been ongoing for a lot of years. | |
| And I think it's deeply rooted that we're allies in a lot of things. | |
| But we work very closely with sports institutions within the US, the Olympic Committee in the US. | |
| And a lot of our students are actually studying in the US. | |
| And we have programmes with certain universities for our athletes for scholarship programs and so on. | |
| So I think having a leader that understands sports and the importance of sports and you can speak to him freely about that, I think is a benefit for everyone in the world of sports, I would say. | |
|
Discipline Through Competition
00:03:28
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| You're sportsman yourself, and you were, like I said earlier, you were a professional racing driver. | |
| Very successful. | |
| You won a lot of races. | |
| You competed in some big events, the Le Mans 24 and others. | |
| What did that teach you about yourself, about leadership? | |
| When you're in elite sport at the highest level, to be a sports minister now, having done that, that's got to be an advantage. | |
| Well, it taught me a lot, I'll be honest. | |
| And I think that's why I think sports is very important. | |
| Not only that it's nice, it's entertaining and so on, but when you do it on a you know on a top level, it doesn't become anymore that joyful sometimes. | |
| You feel very stressed and under a lot of pressure and no days off and missing a lot of holidays and things that you'd wish to go to. | |
| But then it teaches you discipline, it teaches you respect and it teaches you that it's okay to fail and to grow up and to learn from it and move on. | |
| I think what has benefited me most in what we're doing today is that the long hours that we spend in the office, sometimes days without a very short sleep from my previous career in motorsport, is that I used to do endurance racing. | |
| So we used to spend the Le Mar 24 hours, Nibergreen 24 hours, Dubai 24 hours, all of these long races. | |
| And sometimes you only sleep for one hour during the 24 hours and you have to be ready to perform and keep it. | |
| Good practice for this thing. | |
| Exactly. | |
| So a lot of that is reflected in my daily life, but also setting a program for yourself and being disciplined to that program. | |
| Because you know what the outcome is. | |
| And I learned the hard way. | |
| I wasn't very disciplined when I started. | |
| And I think I was just quick by talent. | |
| But then when I reached to a certain level, I didn't evolve. | |
| I didn't grow. | |
| And I realized that I was missing something. | |
| And I remember my first race that I did, my first 24 hours race in a proper GT3 class, which was the highest in the Dubai 24 Hours race, is that I did a couple of stints and I went to ATA and I was completely destroyed. | |
| I couldn't perform anymore because it was the longest race and I was just physically not ready. | |
| Then I realized that you actually have to do a lot of cardio, a lot of training. | |
| Exactly. | |
| Which I didn't do before. | |
| Christiana could have told you that. | |
| Exactly. | |
| But I didn't know the know-how. | |
| I didn't have the know-how at the time. | |
| As I said, that sports were freshly developed in the kingdom and very, you know, some sports didn't have any representation at the time, and we're talking about 2005 2006, so it's not been a long time ago. | |
| But I think that's what you know. | |
| Sports gives you the drive to keep on trying, to keep on going and it keeps that in you uh, that fire that you, that you want and and, and looking for other ways to to, to win um, and and finding other options and other solutions to do so so, so I I really think that it represents a lot. | |
| You know, I think maybe 80 or 60, 60 to 80 percent of who I am today is because of the, the history that I went through. | |
| But I also started very late. | |
| I started when I was 21. | |
| Imagine if I started when I was four years old. | |
|
Rapid Societal Transformation
00:05:46
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| So that's what we're trying to do. | |
| It could have been Lewis Hamilton. | |
| Maybe. | |
| Really, maybe, if I had the opportunity. | |
| But that's what we want to... | |
| Well, that's interesting about opportunity, isn't it? | |
| Because it seems to me, from everything I've gleaned since I've been here and prepping to come here, there's much more opportunity now for young Saudis to perhaps do what you wish you'd done. | |
| You have to start all this stuff a lot, isn't it? | |
| Because now they can become a racing driver, they can become a tennis player. | |
| There's one amazing story about two young orphan girls who, because of the previous rules, laws, about women having to have a guardian. | |
| They didn't have a guardian because they were orphans. | |
| So they couldn't do anything. | |
| And now the rule changed, and now they're playing in a national women's football team. | |
| That's an amazing story. | |
| A lot of people think, well, of course they should, but actually, it's an illustration of how fast things have changed. | |
| That's what I'm trying to reflect on, and is that a lot of the opportunities that I did not have, sitting here speaking to you, that I want my kids to have and the younger generation to have, that they can just live a normal life that we consider and have normal opportunities to grow in different things. | |
| You mentioned the two orphans that we have and they play in the national team and they scored actually the first ever goal for Saudi Arabia in a proper sanctioned match by FIFA and so on. | |
| And now they're in the FIFA ranking for the first time. | |
| We have a Saudi league that's broadcasted on FIFA Plus throughout the world. | |
| That wasn't available two years ago, three years ago. | |
| Imagine that opportunity for these two girls that needed a guardianship, but because they were orphans, they didn't have a guardianship, so they had nothing to do or they couldn't do anything. | |
| You have two children. | |
| Yes. | |
| I think a son and a daughter. | |
| You've been through an extraordinary period yourself in the life of Saudi Arabia where ironically you probably had it toughest, right? | |
| Your parents probably had it a bit easier. | |
| You had the hard yards and then your kids are going to have a very different experience. | |
| Yeah, we've gone through a lot of social movement, I would say. | |
| A lot of things were allowed in the past and then they were not allowed, such as cinemas and so on. | |
| Right, so tell me that, yeah, because that's an interesting. | |
| So, you know, just to reflect a bit, you know, people think that, you know, don't can't relate to what I'm talking about. | |
| Is that my mother and father grew up in mudhouses and today you have skyscrapers and they're still alive. | |
| They saw that. | |
| His Majesty, the custodian of the two holy mosques, has been the governor of Riyald for over 50 years. | |
| He saw the city of Riyadh move from mudhouses to skyscrapers. | |
| That's one generation of development and so on. | |
| So life has really changed so much from going through that we had the normal things such as cinemas and you had this someone who was going around the houses and with an old cinema projecture and they would book him per day to watch and gather and watch movies to having it forbidden and then having it back again. | |
| And you were in the forbidden stage. | |
| And I was on the forbidden stage. | |
| So imagine you're living in. | |
| But isn't that surreal, isn't it? | |
| That your parents had a more free existence than you did. | |
| And now your kids will have the most free experience of all. | |
| And that's all happened in the space of... | |
| I mean, how old are you, you don't mind me asking? | |
| 41. | |
| 41. | |
| That's all happened in the space of under 50 years. | |
| Yeah. | |
| This extraordinary role. | |
| Extraordinary evolution, I would say, and different phases that we've been through. | |
| And that's why I think that we know what benefits us the most. | |
| And we listen and we hear and we're close to the requirements of what people want on the ground. | |
| And I think that's why a lot of this change also happened very quickly without any issues. | |
| People accept it and people want it to happen. | |
| And it takes a strong leadership to take these decisions to make that change in society towards the best for the future. | |
| And some decisions you have to take them today that will feel the effects in a couple of years coming. | |
| But coming to the opportunities is that, you know, I think the thing is that my son will not know the life that I lived and didn't have these opportunities, or my son and daughter. | |
| And giving them these opportunities will let them start in an earlier age, be brighter for the future, hopefully, and put the right steps for them to grow stronger for the future. | |
| And I think that's the opportunity that we are delivering today on the ground through sports, through entertainment, through culture, through a lot of the social change that is happening, but also through business and reforming our economy and diversifying our economy for the future and being more sustainable and being more present in the future. | |
| I'm somebody who likes monarchies. | |
| I love the British monarchy. | |
| Obviously, a very close relationship between the British monarchy and the monarchy here. | |
| Yes. | |
| What's your thought about monarchy, the idea of it? | |
| Are you a fan of the idea of a monarchy? | |
| I am. | |
| Of course, you're a member of it. | |
| I'm probably not speaking to the most impartial observer, but do you think it's a sustainable model going forward, say, 100, 200 years? | |
| I think so. | |
| I think you can see the benefits. | |
| You can see the decisions that are taking place. | |
| You can see the right decisions are in place. | |
| It works maybe differently from country to country. | |
| And here we're very connected to the people. | |
|
Monarchy and Winning Dreams
00:08:44
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| We're part of the people. | |
| We go to the same schools. | |
| We go to the same... | |
| There's no isolation or differences between the monarchy here and so on. | |
| So we know the needs of what goes on on the ground. | |
| And I think that helps a lot in decision making. | |
| But also we come from a tribal, I would say, history throughout the Arab world, but especially in the Arabian Peninsula, is this tribal unity that is there between the different tribes and the different families that's keeping or that's evolving in the way that he evolved to unify Saudi Arabia. | |
| King Abdrazi used to unify the founder of Saudi Arabia to unify Saudi Arabia 90 years ago or more, riding a horse from one area to another. | |
| There weren't any planes, there weren't any cars or anything like that. | |
| He couldn't have done it alone. | |
| He's done it with a lot of people and he used the right tools and the right leadership to showcase that he can be the leader of Saudi Arabia. | |
| And people wanted him to be. | |
| And I think that's a burden on us as a royal family to always deliver on what the people want. | |
| But I think also, you know, it takes, in the end, a good leader is a good leader. | |
| Wherever you are on the left. | |
| Wherever you are, I think. | |
| Whatever you do. | |
| Exactly. | |
| I think we're very fortunate to have the leadership of the custodian of the Tuholy Mosque, King Salman, and His Royal Highness. | |
| And we're very fortunate to his enthusiasm, his passion, and his work ethics that have been implemented in the past eight years that we see on the ground today. | |
| I remember when the 2030 vision was announced, everyone was saying, this is just going to be on paper, nothing's going to happen. | |
| And today, it's on the ground. | |
| You see the fruit. | |
| One of our KPIs was to have Saudis participate in sports half an hour or more, reaching 40% of Saudis participate in sports half an hour or more by 2030. | |
| A day or two? | |
| It was a week. | |
| A week. | |
| Yeah, it was 13% in 2015. | |
| So 40% of Saudis to participate half an hour or more per week by 2030. | |
| We achieved 48% this year. | |
| And we had to change our regulations and our KPI because now we abide by the WHO with 150 minutes per week. | |
| So it increased towards that. | |
| That says to me that the people, who obviously we know they're a young population, they want this. | |
| 100%. | |
| They want to play more sports. | |
| They want to be more active. | |
| And we have to give them that. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And develop on that. | |
| But we have to do it and put the right steps towards them and work with everyone, all the experts around the world, to make sure that you can deliver on the right word. | |
| Does it frustrate you sometimes as a Saudi prince, a member of the royal family, that you do so much business, say with countries like the UK? | |
| Arms deals, trade deals. | |
| Whenever you come, any of the senior members of the family, you get feted by the royal family in our country. | |
| You own a lot of stuff in the UK, and yet there still will be a lot of people in the UK who've never been here who just have an incredibly negative view of Saudi Arabia, of the people, the government, and so on. | |
| Do you feel frustrated by that? | |
| I used to be in the beginning. | |
| And then I said, will that change me? | |
| No. | |
| Will that change what we're doing? | |
| No. | |
| We know what we need to do. | |
| We know what's best for us and we have to keep on going, despite whoever says anything about us. | |
| But I really would love, you know, whoever has an opinion about Saudi Arabia and has never been to Saudi Arabia, please come. | |
| Come and see our country. | |
| Come and meet the people on the ground. | |
| I am 100% sure that your perspective about Saudi Arabia will be changed. | |
| Come and visit the kingdom. | |
| Come and see Saudi Arabia. | |
| You know, sometimes if you can't come, sometimes they do exhibitions and events around there in the UK or around the world. | |
| Go and attend them and see, if you are curious, of course, about Saudi Arabia and so on. | |
| So please do come and see. | |
| Because it's a different world, you know. | |
| And that's the beauty of traveling, I think. | |
| You get to experience other parts of the world. | |
| I've traveled the Middle East for 30 odd years. | |
| I've been to many... | |
| I don't know why I've never come here. | |
| It's not been deliberate. | |
| But it's great to be here. | |
| I just always have felt that if you go a lot to the Middle East, you have a very different impression of it to people who never go. | |
| And it's just one of those realities. | |
| But it's the same everywhere in the world. | |
| If I've never been to any country around the world, you only know what you hear about it. | |
| But when you go and see for yourself, then it's a different perspective of what it is. | |
| Funny, Saudi 2034 is growing together is the mantra. | |
| So you're going to keep growing, keep growing. | |
| Football gets better and better. | |
| You get more and more players. | |
| The league gets better. | |
| The homegrown players get raised. | |
| Suddenly, you think, wow, we've got a team here. | |
| In the first ever World Cup in a Middle East country, in Qatar, the last one, you beat Argentina, Saudi Arabia in the first round. | |
| And they went on to win the tournament. | |
| Is the ultimate dream for you, 2034 World Cup final? | |
| Saudi Arabia, they win the World Cup. | |
| And if so, who would you most like to beat in the final? | |
| I think it's an ultimate dream for everyone. | |
| Why would you compete in the World Cup if you don't want to win it? | |
| Do you think you can? | |
| I think if we put the right steps in, if we work on the right programs, it's not going to be easy because everyone's working towards that. | |
| A lot of countries are much well developed and established than we are. | |
| But I truly believe in miracles from what I've seen in this country and from the leadership and so on. | |
| If you ask me, just to relate to that, if you ask me five years ago you're going to host Formula One, I'm going to tell you you're dreaming. | |
| We host Formula One today. | |
| And I come from that field of motorsports and so on. | |
| So I think anything is possible in sports. | |
| I mean, you've seen, I think this year in the Olympics, the most medals to countries, I think, was awarded in the Olympics this year. | |
| So a lot of countries with very, you know, economically very poor and so on, but they have an Olympic champion who's won a gold medal. | |
| And I think that's the beauty of sports, is that it gives everyone a chance to win and to work hard towards aspiring to that goal. | |
| Is it possible? | |
| Yes, nothing is impossible. | |
| And who do you most want to beat? | |
| England? | |
| United States? | |
| Donald Trump crying in the background? | |
| Honestly. | |
| One of your neighbors. | |
| Yeah, it would be nice to see two Gulf countries in the final. | |
| And we win in Egypt. | |
| Which one? | |
| Which one would be most satisfying? | |
| Any of them, to be honest. | |
| Yeah, any of them. | |
| But I think it doesn't make a difference if you win it. | |
| Saudi 3, Egypt 2. | |
| That would be a nice result. | |
| But I think if you talk to the sports minister in Egypt, he'd say the same thing about us. | |
| So I think it's the ultimate goal for everyone. | |
| Is it possible? | |
| We've seen a lot of remarkable things in sports. | |
| Morocco reaching the semi-finals and with an amazing team. | |
| Croatia, with a very young population, reaching the final, I think, twice. | |
| You know, my favourite quote? | |
| Nelson Mandela, who I had the pleasure of interviewing many years ago, and he had this great quote: It always seems impossible until it's done. | |
| Yeah, true. | |
| That should be your mantra for winning the World Cup. | |
| That is our mantra. | |
| Growing together, and it's always been impossible unless someone does it. | |
| It's great to meet you and to come here and really see it for myself. | |
| I think it's going to be a great World Cup. | |
| Inshallah, it will. | |
| And you're all welcome to come, especially you, Piers. | |
| And hopefully, we enjoy the matches in 2034. | |
| When England beat you 5-4 in the final, just don't take it out on me. | |
| Let's wait and see. | |
| We'll do the same as what we did with Argentina. | |
| Your Royal Highness, thank you very much for your time. | |
| Thank you so much. | |