‘Fun and winning’ - Yasir Al-Rumayyan outlines PIF strategy and name-checks Newcastle United
Yasir Al-Rumayyan has acknowledged how Newcastle United remain a key cog in the Public Investment Fund’s fabled Vision 2030 strategy.
PIF bulldozed their way into English football three-and-a-half years ago by liberating the Magpies from Mike Ashley. Until then, the sovereign wealth fund had dabbled in the sporting world but buying Newcastle - following a lengthy legal battle - was a landmark moment.
This gave PIF recognition in one of the world’s leading brands, the Premier League, and a wave of investment followed. Saudi Arabia are now key players in boxing and golf, with a PGA Tour merger announced 18 months ago.
MMA, snooker, darts and WWE have all been staged in the Gulf state, with critics labelling the development as sportswashing, a move to mask the nation’s alleged human rights abuses. PIF have always asserted that investment in sport is a key staple of their Vision 2030 program, which aims to diversify the country’s economy from oil.
When grilled about Saudi’s sporting endeavours, Al-Rumayyan, Newcastle’s chairman and PIF governor, insisted “fun and winning” are important objectives. He also opened up about how buying the Magpies was a catalyst for further football interests.
“Fun and winning is part of the main targets that Vision 2030 has,” Al-Rumayyan told the FII Institute. “(We want to) improve the quality of life in Saudi Arabia. We have a young population, relatively speaking to most other countries.
“Saudis used to spend over $30billion on an annual basis outside of the country because there wasn’t much in Saudi. The sports sector is one of the 13 different sectors that we've been focusing on as part of our strategy.
“The first thing that we did, in football, was buy Newcastle. We did extremely well. Then we started on our local deployment. We have four football clubs in Saudi and, the reason why we acquired these, is because we want to elevate the Saudi Pro League to be in the top three football leagues."