A multi-million dollar tennis challenge is little more than a sporting whitewash

THIS festive showdown between Nadal and Novak hides a wider agenda to use sport as soft branding tool, to slowly and subtly bring an often radical regime into the mainstream.

Brazil's forward Neymar (R) fights for the ball with Argentina's midfielder Giovani Lo Celso (C) during the friendly football match at the King Abdullah Sport City Stadium in Jeddah.

THIS is a tricky one.

Normally, two of the most dominant sportsmen of all time heading to the middle-east for a festive showdown should not in itself be cause for anything other than local hype.

Only, the timing of the announcement this week of the December 22 clash between Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic in Jeddah on the Red Sea coast, stinks. That’s really stinks.

It’s not the money - we can conservatively guess at $10 million per player for a few hours middling workout - but the timing and intent behind the bling that we should be concerned about.

This week Jeddah hosted a soccer match between two of the game’s heavyweights, Brazil and Argentina. There will have been a substantail fee.

This week also, a Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered outside his country by a Saudi hit squad in the most horrific and medieval manner, disembowelling a core component.

Serbia's Novak Djokovic (R) greets Spain's Rafael Nadal after winning their men's singles semi-final match at the 2018 Wimbledon Championships. The men are to meet again in Jeddah in December. Picture: John Walton/AFP

Jamal had been vociferous in his criticism of the new Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the abhorrent Saudi sponsored war in Yemen.

Whether to make a sporting stand on this matter alone is a moral judgment probably best left to the combatants themselves, but there is a longer play at work here and one we should address now.

Remember, this country, and world governing body FIFA, turned a blind eye to the Saudi soccer team that ignored polite convention to turn their back on a minute’s silence (for the victims of the London terror attacks) at the Adelaide Oval last year.

Not good, but more disconcerting still is the growing use of sport as soft branding, to slowly and subtly bring an often radical regime into the mainstream.

We’ve seen it in soccer, most successfully with the City Football Group, the Abu Dhabi behemoth behind England’s Manchester City and more recently Melbourne City in the A-League. Splash the cash beyond the team - CFG has spent tens of millions on urban infrastructure improvements in inner Manchester, the City heartland - and the public sees the benevolent and benign before all else.

Socceroo players observe a minutes silence before the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifierwhile Saudi Arabia players stand and wait for the start of the game at the Adelaide Oval. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty

That Melbourne City will not shortly dominate soccer in Australia is inconceivable, CFG’s money and marketing is second to none. It will be the club to play for, to support even, and most important of all, to accept. It brings its owners a seat at the top table within top society and that's worth the billions that go into whitewashing through sport.

We have seen such power this week with the news that Usain Bolt - a pedestrian soccer player but marketing gold - was apparently contemplating doing a runner from Central Coast Mariners (for whom he is yet to play a league game) and decamping to Valletta FC in Malta.

This is a club with an ignominious sporting history outside its domestic league but, also, has undergone a change of ownership, an Abu Dhabi corporate taking over last month.

Bring in Bolt and suddenly an, albeit ethereal and really quite odd, gravitas is acquired by the club. It builds column inches far quicker off the field than on and before we know it, we know what Valletta FC is all about, even if we can’t quite pinpoint its country on a map.

We’ll know who the owners just as we’ll know they are also alright, OK people. Because they’re into sport.

The 2022 Qatar World Cup is, of course, another and grander still case in point.

There will not be many more intelligent and articulate sportsmen than Rafa and Novak. Even if they don’t change their minds, it would be nice to know that they had rethought what is the most unsavoury of challenges.

It’s time to make a stand boys.

Originally published as A multi-million dollar tennis challenge is little more than a sporting whitewash