Engulfed: How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport, and the World

‘This is an important book’
Simon Kuper, bestselling author of Soccernomics, Chums and Barça

‘Compelling’
The Times
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In 2034, Saudi Arabia will host the men’s FIFA World Cup and mark the culmination of Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious plan to modernise Saudi Arabia, a kingdom of unfathomable wealth at the heart of the Islamic world, which is only now emerging from nearly a century of self-isolation. How did we get here? Why would a country spend tens of billions of dollars, perhaps even hundreds of billions in the long run, to buy and control sport?

Engulfed is a story about ambition, family rivalries, extreme wealth, power, murder and disinformation. It is also the story of dictatorship, political corruption and, at its root, how sport – football, yes, but also golf, boxing and even e-sports – became a vital geopolitical tool for Saudi Arabia.

Drawing on Montague’s exclusive first-hand interviews from his extensive travels across Saudi Arabia, the US, the north-east of England, Spain, Turkey and beyond, Engulfed uncovers how the House of Saud zeroed in on the political power of sport, using it both as a powerful political tool of influence and as a way to rectify the PR damage caused by one of the most infamous assassinations in history: the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

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