Thomas Peeters, sports economist at Erasmus School of Economics, was a guest at the Belgian radio station Radio 1. The topic of discussion was the Spanish Supercup final played in Saudi Arabia.
According to Peeters, outsourcing the Supercup saves the Spaniards a lot of money. On the other hand we hear a lot of critique about human rights in Saudi Arabia. Workers died during the construction of new soccer stadiums, the same ones that will be used by Dutch teams for their training during winter. Peeters states that big soccer teams have to set aside their rivalry to come to collective agreements about ethics.
Saudi Arabia also organised bike contests and the world cup in athletics. Oftentimes, the costs of such an event are higher than the profits. In a country as Saudi Arabia such a matter is less important, because the public does not have to be convinced. Organising such competitions also appears to be good for the image, because in retrospect we see more exports from these countries.
With all this considered, our policy of outsourcing sports events will not change in the short term, says Peeters.