MENA

The European Tour has struck a long-term deal to stage a tournament in Saudi Arabia, in what will mark the first professional golf event to be held in the country.

Formula E chief executive Alejandro Agag has said the electric car-racing series is in talks over holding new races in Beirut, Cairo and Doha, along with returning to China.

A lucrative new horseracing event featuring a prize fund of more than $17m (€13.8m) is set to launch in Saudi Arabia.

Qatar has maintained that it is on course to deliver a successful 2022 Fifa World Cup, with Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani stating that the blockade that affected infrastructure development last year will not impact on preparations for the national team football tournament.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is in negotiations to acquire a minority stake in Endeavor, the parent company of the WME talent agency and IMG, one of the most influential agencies in the sports industry, according to multiple reports.

The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) has launched a new Twenty20 competition with the goal of making it one of the world’s leading leagues.

GBI Racing, a joint venture between UK pay-television broadcasters Racing UK and At The Races, has agreed a £4.9m (€5.5m/$6.6m) compensation package with the Israeli government after the country moved to ban betting on horse racing.

The Al Shaqab horse-racing ownership group has told trainers that they will be paid soon after it was reported that the collective debts of the group had reached more than £1m (€1.1m/$1.4m).

Silva International Investments, the investment group owned by sports and media entrepreneur Riccardo Silva, has acquired a stake in Globe Soccer, the company which organises and owns the rights to the annual Globe Soccer Awards in Dubai.

Fifa has today (Wednesday) lifted its two-year suspension of Kuwait, saying a new sports law brings the country in-line with its statutes.

Abu Dhabi will take centre stage as two of the world’s top football competitions, the FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2017-2018 and AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019, come to town. Alexis Dijksterhuis of Abu Dhabi-based ticketing and events company FLASH Entertainment is relishing the prospect.

The Kuwaiti parliament has approved a draft law that seeks to end bans imposed on the country by the International Olympic Committee and Fifa.

The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), the organising body for Qatar’s staging of football’s Fifa World Cup in 2022, has said the Ras Abu Aboud Stadium will be the first venue in the history of the tournament to be built using a modular design.

Sport in Saudi Arabia is on the cusp of enormous change. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – the heir to the kingdom’s throne and one of the two most powerful men in the country along with his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz – has targeted sport as one of the vehicles of his ambitious plan to transform the country.

Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have withdrawn from the Gulf Cup of Nations football tournament amid their ongoing diplomatic dispute with host country, Qatar.

Julio Grondona, formerly a long-serving senior Fifa executive and president of the Argentinian Football Association (AFA), took at least $1m (€863,000) in bribes to vote for Qatar as host of the 2022 World Cup, according to Alejandro Burzaco, former chief executive of Argentinian media group and sports-rights agency Torneos.