The authorities of
Saudi Arabia
know that through sport they can clean up an image questioned by the human rights violations denounced by international organizations.
In the first month of the year alone, they gave a sample of their wealth by organizing the
2023 Dakar Rally
-for the fourth consecutive year- and hosting at the King Fahd stadium in their capital, Riyadh, the
Spanish Super Cup
, the
Italian Super Cup
and the An unprecedented friendly that faced
Lionel Messi
, with his Paris Saint Germain team, and
Cristiano Ronaldo
, who was part of a team of players from his new club (Al-Nassr) and Al-Hilal.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo embraced before the start of the match.
(@RiyadhSeason)
Now it was revealed that
in 2022 they tried to buy Formula 1 with their dollars through the PIF
(The Public Investment) fund, the same one that recently bought Newcastle United and turned it into a team that went from fighting to avoid falling into the Championship to being a protagonist of the Premier League.
The Arab country, which entered F1 in 2021 with the design of a street circuit that became the fastest on the calendar, offered the American consortium Liberty Media
20,000 million dollars
last year through an investment fund.
Although the offer was tempting, because the group had bought the rights to Formula 1 from the British Bernie Ecclestone in September 2016
for about 4.4 billion dollars
, the response was negative, according to the Bloomberg news agency.
Liberty Media had sufficient reasons to sell: although the business is growing and F1 is adding more and more fans around the world every day -some come through the
Netflix series
"Drive to Survive"
, an idea of the Americans-, the The
coronavirus pandemic left great economic losses and
the category is currently valued at 12.5 billion dollars, 7.5 billion less than those offered by the Saudis
.
Although the Americans were blunt, in PIF they do not consider the issue closed.
As it turned out, they confirmed to Liberty Media that
the offer will remain in force and they would even be willing to raise it
.
Aramco advertising on the nose of the Aston Martin.
Photo MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP
For now,
Saudi Arabia has shares in the McLaren and Aston Martin teams
and its oil company
Aramco
is the main sponsor of numerous Grand Prix and the category itself.
With their petrodollars they also expressed their intention to build a city to be the headquarters of the gridiron teams.
The commitment of the Middle Eastern country is firm.
They already have a Grand Prix on the calendar, the one in Jeddah, and they are in the process of building the second (Qiddiyah)
.
In addition, they agreed that the Saudi Arabian GP will mark the start of the 2024 season at the request of the local government to respect Ramadan.
Jeddah city.
Photo Twitter
The event, which joined the calendar in the 2021 season and hosted the penultimate race, became the second race in 2022, something that will be repeated this year, as the action will begin in Bahrain from March 3-5 and will be moved to Saudi Arabia from 17 to 19.
But in 2024 it will have a new calendar change and it will be the inaugural venue
.
Initially, Australia had everything agreed to return to being the first stop of the Great Circus, as it did between 1996 and 2019. However, within the contract extension that it carried out this year, the agreement indicates that "Melbourne will
host the first race of the Formula 1 season for at least four years between 2023 and 2037,
with the exception of 2024 which will be reserved for Saudi Arabia out of respect for Ramadan
."
look too
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Formula 1 revealed its new calendar: one by one, how where and when the 2023 Grands Prix will be held