The Saudi monarchy will pay soccer star Lionel Messi, reigning World Cup champion and record seven-time Golden Ball winner for the best footballer, a reported $25 million to make several trips to the Kingdom and post snapshots to Instagram over a three year period.
That’s according to a contract between the soccer giant and Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority that was reviewed by the New York Times.
“He believes in Saudi and the vision of Saudi,” Rayco García Cabrera, who brokered the meetings between Messi’s management and Kingdom officials, told the New York Times.
Messi began his work as a pitchman by urging his Instagram followers to “discover” Saudi’s Red Sea—which netted him roughly $2 million alone, according to the Times.
He went on to recommend attending the Jeddah Season festival, enjoying an authentic Arabian experience, or wandering the alleyways of Diriyah, birthplace of the Saudi dynasty (and home of Wahhabism, a form of extreme Salafist Islam).
If he vacations for five or six days in Saudi Arabia with his family—all expenses paid by the monarchy—he receives another $2 million.
However, receiving the extravagant amount of money to promote Saudi’s standing does come with strings attached, according to the paper.
Messi is not allowed to tarnish the reputation of the monarchy—a limitation that will likely stop the Argentine sports star from speaking about many events in the kingdom’s recent history.
MBS and modernizing the kingdom
Saudi Arabian leader Mohammed bin Salman was originally dubbed a modernizer when he became the crown prince under his infirm 87-year-old father, the country’s titular ruler. Four years ago MBS, as he’s known, opened up the country to western tourists who weren’t coming for the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
Yet his human rights record remains checkered, with women’s rights activist Loujain al Hathloul’s spending 1,001 days behind bars, the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi or allegations of child rape committed by proxies of Saudi Arabia in neighboring Yemen all happening in recent years.
Riyadh’s prized relations with America soured following the transition from the transactional administration of Donald Trump, as President Joe Biden pledged to reevaluate the partnership even before taking office.
When the crown prince cut oil production just ahead of midterm elections—when soaring energy prices were a key concern of American voters—ties between the Kingdom and the U.S. government sank to a low point since Saudi nationals committed the 9-11 attacks.
MBS has been forced to turn toward other like-minded autocratic states such as China, which brokered a deal earlier this year to open up official relations between the monarchy and Iran’s rival Shiite regime.
To rehabilitate his reputation in the West, MBS has also gone on a public relations campaign in which sports are a critical strategic lever.
The country poached Messi’s closest rival, Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo, to play for its Al Nassr club and more recently brought the Professional Golf Association under its control.
Messi did however stop short of fully endorsing the country as a destination. He turned down a lucrative $400 million offer to join Ronaldo in the Saudi football league and instead decided to kick for Inter Miami in America’s Major League Soccer.