It’s not just Greg Norman: Saudis sign raft of Aussies in sport splurge

From scrapping away in the old National Soccer League with Parramatta Power and Sydney United to calling the shots on a slice of a $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, Danny Townsend’s career trajectory has been steep. He heads a cast of Australians recruited by Saudi Arabia in a bid to realise the stratospheric sporting ambitions of the oil-rich Middle East state.

The Saudis have unloaded billions in an extraordinary spending spree in global sport of recent years that has included the backing of breakaway golf tour LIV Golf and a raid on the world’s greatest football players to staging the biggest heavyweight boxing fight of the century in Riyadh.

Danny Townsend was in charge of Sydney FC and then Australia’s domestic football leagues before taking up an offer in Saudi Arabia.

Then there are the other global events on the horizon in the kingdom: football’s Asian Cup in 2027, the FIFA World Cup in 2034, for which Saudi Arabia was ultimately the only bidder, and perhaps, beyond that, the Olympic Games, which it has identified as the “ultimate goal”.

The cash-splash has naturally brought blowback, with the process widely dismissed as “sportswashing” designed to spruce up a reputation tarnished by an appalling human rights record.

But the Saudis have pressed forward regardless and Greg Norman, the chief executive and commissioner of LIV Golf, is far from the only Australian they have enlisted.

Envious of Australia’s tradition of punching above its weight in sport, and of its participation rates and culture of being active, the kingdom has hired a group of other Australians to senior posts in the Saudi sporting landscape.

‘Saudi Arabia is the fastest growing sports economy in history. The old rule book doesn’t apply.’

John Persico, Australian sports technology consultant

The most prominent is Townsend, the former chief of football’s Australian Professional Leagues and A-League club Sydney FC, who since last October has headed the newly created sports arm of Saudi Arabia’s $US700 billion ($1 trillion) Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Former Australian Institute of Sport director Matt Favier was also picked up; he is running the country’s nascent Olympic program and will be in Paris next month with the Saudi delegation.

Other Australians signed to significant positions in Saudi sport include stadium and tournament consultant Tim Brouw, who was appointed as a senior advisor with the ministry of sport in 2022 and is now in charge of the country’s vast football stadium development; long-time administrator Peter Hugg, who helped Saudi Arabia secure the Asian Cup and is executive director for its tournament operations; and former Australian boxing head coach Kevin Smith, who has been Saudi boxing’s technical director since 2022.

Elsewhere, the Saudis have sought the expertise of a raft of other Australians. Among them is Andrew Liveris, the Brisbane 2032 Olympics chairman and former head of American industrial giant Dow Chemicals, who is a special advisor to the PIF and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of the country, and a board member of state-owned petroleum giant Saudi Aramco.

Australians lending their expertise to Saudi Arabia (clockwise from left): Andrew Liveris, Peter Hugg, Kevin Smith, Tim Brouw

Others include John Persico, a leading government advisor on sports technology, and Gold Coast entrepreneur Geoffrey Schuhkraft, the founder of sports management agency International Quarterback.

A host of Australians have key roles in a showpiece giga-project in Qiddiya, south-west of Riyadh, where a sports, wellness and adventure mecca including a new Formula 1 racing circuit, e-sports arenas and the world’s largest water park is being constructed.

Flush with petrodollars, Saudi Arabia obviously pays handsomely. Norman’s salary with LIV Golf, which has lured some of the world’s best golfers with sums in the hundreds of millions, is reportedly as high as $US50 million ($75 million).

But other Australian executives, whose remuneration would be small fractions of Norman’s, say they were convinced to get on board to join in the growth of a sporting ecosystem evolving at unprecedented speed.

Greg Norman with South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas, whose state has hosted the rebel LIV Golf tour.Credit: Getty

“Given where they’re at as a country, and what they’re trying to do, and their capacity for growth and change, if there’s one part of the world at the moment that is really moving forward, it is here,” said 50-year-old Townsend, who played for four seasons in the NSL before it was phased out and replaced by the A-League.

“To be a part of that, and watch it first hand, was an opportunity I really couldn’t knock back.”

Townsend’s job as chief of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund’s SRJ Sports Investments makes him the point man on follow-up investments to the high-profile assets the Saudis have already bought into or established in the past three years.

They include the bankrolling of LIV Golf, the purchase of an 80 per cent stake in EPL side Newcastle United, the coaxing of the world’s most famous footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo, to the Saudi Pro League on a €200 million ($320 million) salary and a partnership with tennis’ ATP tour.

Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates after scoring a goal for Al-Nassr, one of four Saudi Pro League clubs country’s sovereign wealth fund took control of last year.Credit: Getty Images

The PIF has also made huge investments in combat sports, putting $US100 million into the mixed martial arts Professional Fighters League and hosting an Ultimate Fighting Championship card for the first time in June, a month after the Kingdom Arena held the first undisputed heavyweight boxing title fight in 25 years between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.

The figures splashed around are astronomical but according to the Saudis the sports splurge is key to bin Salman’s Vision 2030 strategy, which seeks to modernise and diversify the nation’s economy.

Amid colossal development, including the construction of a futuristic new 170km-long city dubbed “The Line”, sport is identified as a key pillar. One of the targets is to have 40 per cent of the population of 32 million active by the end of the decade.

“In order to get people interested and focused on sport you’ve got to inspire them and the big events, the things that we bring into the kingdom, are what inspires young Saudis to try something new, to play a different sport,” Townsend said.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, with FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the opening ceremony of the 2018 World Cup in Moscow.Credit: Getty Images

On the Australian influence in making Saudi Arabia’s grand aspirations a reality, he said: “Any country in the world that wants to develop a healthy sporting culture would look at Australia as a benchmark for that. Whether that’s the reason why there is a bunch of us in Saudi at the moment, or whether it’s just a coincidence, I probably don’t think it is.

“I think they’ve looked at what we’ve done over many decades in Australia and said ‘look, if we can emulate that, well, fantastic’.”

Saudi Arabia’s monumental outlay has been interpreted as a mass vanity project undertaken to demonstrate international clout.

It has also been shadowed by a legacy of rights abuses and claims it seeks to use sport to burnish its tainted image.

The Saudi government has denied any involvement by the Crown Prince in the death of Jamal Khashoggi.Credit: AP

The 2018 killing of US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the country’s embassy in Turkey was a ghastly example of the repression human rights groups say is faced by critics and perceived enemies of the regime.

Organisations such as Amnesty International and Freedom House have taken aim at Saudi Arabia over its restriction of political rights and civil liberties and an increase in executions, as well as over ongoing discrimination against women, highlighting the continued jailing of women’s rights activists under the autocracy’s counter-terrorism laws.

Saudi leaders point to liberal reforms in the seven years since bin Salman became heir to the throne and the effective ruler of the nation, an absolute monarchy where the official religion is Islam.

They have included women being able to have drivers licences for the first time, and the opening of female gyms, as well as the introduction of physical education in school for girls. Saudi women’s football was in the past played under the cloak of darkness, but now the Saudi Women’s Premier League is broadcast on television.

‘We’re trying to look for those diamonds out there. Saudi definitely has [them]. We just need to engage them.’

Former AIS director Matt Favier

Schuhkraft, who lives in Dubai but has dealt regularly with decision makers in Riyadh, said it was significant that the Assistant Minister for Sports Affairs, Adwa Al-Arifi, is a woman. She has also been a member of the Saudi Olympic Committee and the Saudi Football Federation.

“I’ve always wanted to be a facilitator of positive change,” said Schuhkraft, who has managed athletes including Matthew Hayden and Grant Hackett and was previously contracted by the Queensland government as its senior trade and investment advisor for the Middle East.

“Fair enough they pay good money, but at the same time they are going to deliver phenomenal outcomes.”

He believes the kingdom will become a powerhouse economically and on the sports stage, “and a lot of it is going to be due to the Australians that are there helping them do it.”

Saudi Arabia’s Donia Abu Talib is a medal chance for Saudi Arabia in Paris.Credit: World Taekwondo

As the Olympics approach, Saudi Arabia remains a very minor player. Its delegation of athletes in Paris is not expected to amount to more than a dozen, less than the 33 it had in Tokyo in 2021 because its men’s football team did not qualify.

However, the team will include 27-year-old taekwondo competitor Donia Abu Talib, the first Saudi woman to directly qualify for an Olympics rather than as a result of a quota or wildcard.

Saudi Arabia has never won a gold medal at the Olympics, and has only had female competitors at the last three Games, but as a bronze medallist at the world championships in 2022 Talib has a chance to make a historic breakthrough in Paris.

“We’re pretty excited about her. She’s a great story,” said Favier, a former 800-metre runner who led the AIS between 2012 and 2017 and was later chief executive of Hockey Australia.

“Her father passed away a long time ago. Her mum brought her up. She’s studying law. She’s a great personality and a really quiet, humble person.”

Favier was hired in late 2021 as chief of the new Saudi Olympic Training Centre, which is funding 480 athletes across 34 sports, eight of them Para sports, and is building from the ground up as the country prepares to host another huge multi-sport event, the Asian Games, in Riyadh in 2034.

With 63 per cent of Saudis aged under 30, according to Reuters’ reporting of figures from the country’s General Authority for Statistics, identifying future talent is also a high priority.

“It’s very similar to the AIS in its very first iteration in 1981,” said Favier, 58. “What we’re trying to do is look for those diamonds that are out there, whether they are in our system or not yet in our system. We’re trying to find those really special athletes that every country has [and] Saudi definitely has. We just need to engage them, develop them and give them that opportunity.”

While they are starting from well behind in the production of Olympic athletes, the Saudis are already ahead in other areas, including as the first country to embrace sports digital transformation, according to Persico, a former Australian Sports Technologies Network director. “Saudi Arabia is the fastest growing sports economy in history,” Persico said. “The old rule book doesn’t apply.”

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