The recent Tyson Fury ‘win’ against rookie boxer Frances Ngannou was, how should I put it diplomatically? A debatable de£ision.

Having watched the fight, I am in a huge majority who believe that the outcome was pre-ordained and the only way Ngannou was going to walk out victorious was by knocking Fury out for the count.

Ringside read like a celebrity whose-who with Eminem, Mike Tyson, both Ronaldo’s and Conor McGregor in attendance, as the Saudis went all out to put its sportswashing mark on boxing, as it has football.

Here, as traditionalists, despite the new wave of oil money buying success for teams such as Manchester City, there is still great emphasis put on history and roots as the recent passing and the replaying of black and white footage of Sir Bobby Charlton demonstrates. Teams such as United, much to my chagrin, have a history, built up over generations from when it was a true working class game as crowds of men, after a tough week in a manual labour hellhole, afforded some respite by standing on the terraces and cheering on their heroes who had caught the bus with them to the game.

But now the generational legacy building, long favoured by many sporting institutions, is becoming laughable as the Saudis look to buy their way to the top table by throwing cash like its confetti, to queue jump those who have diligently waited for decades.

As professional footballers nearing the end of their careers, who can blame them for their greed? With around 47 per cent of their income in the UK going to the taxman, the Saudis, with income tax of 0 per cent offer a lucrative get rich quick scheme as they pay, or paid as in the case of Jordan Henderson, £700,000 per week. Ronaldo ‘earns’ (without endorsements) £177million per annum with Benzema close behind on £172m per year. To put that into context, Ronaldo receives £485k per day or £20,238 an hour. Nice work if you can get it.

So why do the Saudis do it? Is it to turn football into a profit-making enterprise? Hardly likely as recently, Henderson's former team, Al Ettifaq, played in front of just 696 fans. The highest attendance this season is only 14,045 fans with an average crowd of 7,164.

Quite simply, money talks, as our former heroes sell their souls to the financial devil: Henderson, with his rainbow laced long held pro-LBGT stance whilst in the UK, cashed in his chips whilst plying his trade in a country where homosexuality is punishable by death. It says something that so unpalatable is the regime, such a bumper pay packet could not satisfy him, before he flounced off for a huge pay cut to Ajax, where he will attempt to rebuild his career and reputation.

But the Saudis, having taken those players mentioned in addition to Neymar, Neves, Mahrez, Firmino, Mane and Kante, deprive the world of enjoying their talents as they keep them hidden in the dust. It is but a perverse game of stockpiling the best on offer so others can’t get their mitts on them.

They are not convincing anyone, and their game plan is not a sound one: Sooner or later they will see that worldwide football fans have not engaged with the lacklustre venues, crowds, and brand of football as the money drain becomes untenable.

A century ago, Saudi totalled two million people, yet now, there are 34 million. They got lucky many would say and built their success, and wealth, on one thing: Oil. As the world, slowly but surely, turns away from the fossil fuel, the Saudis find themselves in a difficult position with a quarter of their usage being at home where, to appease the public in a volatile geographical location, oil is offered for next to nothing to its residents who gleefully let it slip through their fingers with rampant usage.

The Saudis have admitted, as part of their ‘Vision 2030’ plan that they need to diversify beyond oil to ‘spur tourism’ and encourage fitness in a country with an obesity problem.

The reality however is that, with an appalling human rights record and a regime that is as conductive to mass tourism as Stevie Wonder is to F1, they are attempting, and failing, to sportswash their image in double quick time as renegade sportspeople cash in for a year or two and then get the hell out of there.

Money talks, yes, but as with football, and boxing, and golf (they recently launched a £2bn LIV tour) interest will wain as they see no return on their investments and oil revenues drop annually. The only game they should be investing in if they want to remain as middle eastern power brokers is the ‘long game’ and not by dumping cash into a furnace that will heat up faster than they can throw money at it…

  • Brett Ellis is a teacher