The Athletic.

As Premier League side Chelsea continues to look for new owners.

At the time of recording, the bidders are all waiting to hear if they've made a short list.

Later in the pod will speak to the chair of Chelsea pitch owners, the company that holds the

freehold of Stamford Bridge Stadium and the name

Chelsea FC. But first, following on from last week's pod that looked at the role of Russian

money in football, this week will look at the impacts of investment from Saudi Arabia.

And that's in a range of sports including football, boxing,

W. W. W. W.E. Golf from Formula One.

Now I'm joined by Professor Simon Chadwick who is the director of the

Center for Eurasian Sports at the Emlion Business School and he's an expert on

sport geopolitics. Well look look, Simon, thanks so much for joining us.

We're obviously talking to you because of Saudi Arabia and sport has been in the news for

quite some time and is back in the news again around golf but around

football teams of Chelsea obviously. I just want to kind of roll it back. You're a lot of the area and on on sports and how nations use sports what is what is what Saudi Arabia trying to do here

It's trying to do a lot of things.

I think the view that you can somehow distill it all down to one reason is an oversimplification.

I think there's a lot going on. The reality is that Saudi Arabia has got a lot of money. Obviously that money is derived from oil and gas principally. It's something crazy like between 60 and 70% of national income is derived from oil and gas.

So the economy is hugely overdependent upon oil and gas. We know that globally there's a

kick back against the use of oil and gas particularly oil on that basis Saudi Arabia is somewhat exposed it's somewhat vulnerable and so it's seeking to build its industries beyond oil and to be able to generate revenues

and boost national income and increased national growth from non oil and gas sources. So that's one thing that's happening.

Saudi Arabia is looking at its neighbors, particularly Qatar and United Arab Emirates and let's be honest about it that Saudi Arabia has fallen behind it's much smaller and historically less powerful neighbours.

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