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Author: Montague, James

Sports governing bodies

Published on 27 March 2025 by Bonnier Books Ltd (BLINK Publishing) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 304 pages
480 x 320 x 50 | 508g

‘Bravura on the ground reporting’David Goldblatt, award-winning author of The Ball is Round’This is an important book’Simon Kuper, bestselling author of Soccernomics, Chums and Barça’Compelling’The TimesIn 2034, Saudi Arabia will host the men’s FIFA World Cup and mark the culmination of Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious plan to modernise Saudi Arabia, a kingdom of unfathomable wealth at the heart of the Islamic world, which is only now emerging from nearly a century of self-isolation. How did we get here? Why would a country spend tens of billions of dollars, perhaps even hundreds of billions in the long run, to buy and control sport?Engulfed is a story about ambition, family rivalries, extreme wealth, power, murder and disinformation. It is also the story of dictatorship, political corruption and, at its root, how sport – football, yes, but also golf, boxing and even e-sports – became a vital geopolitical tool for Saudi Arabia.

Drawing on Montague’s exclusive first-hand interviews from his extensive travels across Saudi Arabia, the US, the north-east of England, Spain, Turkey and beyond, Engulfed uncovers how the House of Saud zeroed in on the political power of sport, using it both as a powerful political tool of influence and as a way to rectify the PR damage caused by one of the most infamous assassinations in history: the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.