Do you feel a little uncomfortable watching World Cup football matches in Qatar, a country that oppresses women and where homosexuality is a crime?

This Middle Eastern emirate has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a sporting event to shine on the world stage. Its neighbor Saudi Arabia employs the same strategy with its petrodollars to gloss over its reputation and increase its influence.

Here’s another discomfort: Saudi Arabia recently carved a niche for itself in the Bell Centerin the family of organizers of some of Quebec’s biggest sporting and cultural events.

Our Bureau of Investigation brings you today a fascinating dossier on Saudi strategy in the world of sports and entertainment.

For example, the National Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia invested more than $500 million in Live Nation during the pandemic. This American company owns almost half of evenko, the events division of the CH Group.

strong bonds

Long-time partners, Groupe CH and Live Nation formalized their association in December 2019 by creating a joint venture controlled by the Molson family. So much so that Live Nation CEOs Michael Rapino and Wayne Zronik now sit on the evenko board with brothers Geoff and Andrew Molson.

Just an anecdote? No way.

Who organizes the big shows at the Bell Center as well as some of Quebec’s most important events like the Montreal Jazz Festival, Francos and Osheaga to name a few? Live Nation and the CH Group

And who owns Ticketmaster, the official ticket resale platform for the National League and the Montreal Canadiens? LiveNation.

These financial maneuvers deserve attention simply because Saudi Arabia is one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to respecting human rights. In the kingdom of Mohammed Ben Salmane, women are second-class citizens, homosexual relationships are punishable by imprisonment, and numerous cases of torture and barbaric executions have been documented.

pinch your nose

They say money has no smell. Live Nation and Groupe CH are far from the only ones holding their noses.

Several renowned golfers such as Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson have been seduced by the Saudi dollars of the new LIV Golf Circuit, which controversially launched this summer. They find it very enjoyable to play in tournaments where the winner walks away with $4 million and where you end up dead earning $120,000.

Not to mention the mountains of Saudi Arabian money gobbled up in Formula 1. Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, is a major sponsor of Quebec’s Lance Stroll single-seater.

Both the CH Group organization and the Live Nation organization politely declined to answer our questions. It’s her prerogative. If our journalist Francois-David Rouleau had received an interview with their leaders, he would have asked them if they weren’t at least a little concerned about accepting capital from a regime as despicable as Saudi Arabia.

Jean Louis Fortin
Director of the Bureau of Investigation