Football, Politics or Conspiracy?
“On the pitch, Manchester City impressed everybody last season. Now let’s take a look behind the scenes – on the men who own the club.”“The ruler of Abu Dhabi, Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ), and the ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohamed bin Salman (MBS), are the Gulf’s gruesome twosome, and the architects of various harebrained schemes designed to get the upper hand on Qatar. Take, for example, what the auctioneers Christie’s described as “a historic night in New York” in November 2017, when representatives of the Saudi crown prince paid a world-record $450 million for a Leonardo da Vinci painting, ‘Salvatore Mundi’. Christie’s proclaimed that the “stunning price reflects the extreme rarity of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci,” but a more amusing theory later emerged. According to “a source close to the Emirati leader ”, MBS only paid so much for the painting – valued at $80 million – because he thought he was bidding against Qatar. It turns out he was bidding against MBZ, who alsothought he was bidding against Qatar. When the Sheikhs realised their error, they swapped the painting for one of MBZ’s yachts, and that is why an overpriced picture of Jesus is now one of the main attractions for visitors to the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia is unquestionably behind what Tariq Panja described recently in the New York Times as “the brazen bootlegging of a multibillion dollar sports network” whereby sources in Saudi have deployed “industrial scale knowledge and ability” backed by “multimillion dollar-funding” to tap into Qatar’s beIN Sports network and make its content free to view to anyone willing to pay the $100 for the beOutQ decoder that is now widely available in Saudi Arabia.”
The Men Behind Manchester City: The Dark Side – Josimar Not surprising at all. They have all been ganging up on Qatar for lots of reasons for a few years now. It is worth looking at the history of Al Jazeera.
It was started as a joint BBC/Saudi project to try and get more BBC influence but despite editorial independence being guaranteed by the Saudis there was interference including loss of satellite access when someone they didn't like was in a programme.
The only Arab country that would take Al Jazeera was... wait for it... Qatar!
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