BRUSSELS: European Union foreign ministers on Monday endorsed a French government decision to sanction Iranian nationals accused of a bomb plot in France, potentially allowing the measures to take effect across the bloc, three diplomats said.
The ministers said technical work could now start on an EU-wide asset freeze on two Iranians and the Iranian intelligence service over a failed plot to carry out a bomb attack at a rally near Paris organized by an exiled Iranian opposition group.
Denmark, which in October said it suspected an Iranian government intelligence service had tried to carry out an assassination plot on its soil, also pushed for support for similar EU-wide sanctions once its investigation is complete, the diplomats told Reuters.
Though largely symbolic, the EU’s readiness to target Iranians marks a shift after months of division within the bloc over how to punish Iranians accused of destabilising activities in Europe and the Middle East.
Eager to save a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran from which the United States has withdrawn, the EU has focused its efforts in trying to keep trade flowing with Iran in the face of renewed US sanctions, in order to keep Tehran from pulling out.
In an effort to balance their Iran policy, ministers also discussed setting up a special mechanism to trade with Iran that would be under EU, not national, law. They believe this formula could shield individual member states from being hit by US sanctions that have been reimposed on trade with Iran after Washington’s pullout from the nuclear deal.
In March, Britain, France and Germany proposed to sanction Iran over its development of ballistic missiles and its role in Syria’s war, but the initiative failed to gather sufficient support across the EU to take effect.
EU backs Iran sanctions over foiled France attack plot: Diplomats
EU backs Iran sanctions over foiled France attack plot: Diplomats
- The ministers said technical work could now start on an EU-wide asset freeze on two Iranians and the Iranian intelligence service over a failed plot to carry out a bomb attack
- Denmark, which in October said it suspected an Iranian government intelligence service had tried to carry out an assassination plot on its soil
Saudi riders dominate first World Camel Endurance Championship in AlUla
- Local riders filled the first three places in the men’s category
- Event featured a prize pool of more than SR2 million
ALULA: Saudi competitors dominated the first World Camel Endurance Championship for men and women in AlUla, which was held in partnership with the Royal Commission for AlUla Governorate.
The Saudi racers took the first three places and the championship cups in the first and second rounds of the men’s event. Fares Al-Juhani on Bayan won in a time of 15 minutes 54.27 seconds, with Nayef Al-Faydi riding Munadi second in 32:05.84, and Sulaiman Al-Huwaiti on Motaeb third in a time of 32:11.6.
In the women’s category, Saudi racer Kholoud Al-Shammari on Jabbar took first place with a time of 36:59.91, with the second and third places filled by a Jordanian and a German rider respectively.
Competitors representing 20 countries participated in the championship, with the 16 km races split into two 8 km stages, with a 30-minute break in between. After the first stage, 20 male competitors and 15 women qualified for the final stage, and the result was calculated according to times set across the two stages.
The value of the tournament prizes exceeded SR2 million ($533,333), with the winner in the men’s and women’s categories receiving SR500,000, while the balance of the prize pool was distributed between 10 runners-up in the men’s category and 10 runners-up in the women’s category.
How La Liga is building bridges with Saudi Arabia and regional partners
- Managing Director for Middle East and Africa Maite Ventura spoke to Arab News about the recent Futures FC tournament in Riyadh and promoting the Spanish league’s brand and its clubs
DUBAI: On and off the pitch, La Liga’s ties with Saudi Arabian football are growing.
At the start of March, the La Liga FC Futures U14 tournament was held at the Mahd Sports Academy in Riyadh and won by Spanish club Villarreal.
The competition had been organized in partnership with the Kingdom’s Ministry of Sports and saw 12 teams taking part, including eight EA Sports La Liga teams — Barcelona, Cadiz, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Villarreal, Real Betis and Osasuna — as well AS Roma from Italy, Portugal’s SL Benfica, Olympique de Marseille ofFrance and Saudi Arabia’s own Mahd Academy.
Just last week, Barcelona-based Espanyol became the latest Spanish club to welcome a delegation of the Saudi Future Falcons program, with the team from the Kingdom beating the La Liga reserve team 3-2 at Dani Jarque Sports City.
There have been several other collaborations and Maite Ventura, La Liga managing director for the Middle East and North Africa, says more projects are set to come to fruition in the coming months and years — all part of La Liga’s mission to grow its brand.
“Our goal in the case of Saudi is about understanding that the popularity of La Liga and the popularity of football in Saudi is huge,” Ventura told Arab News at La Liga’s headquarters in Dubai. “I think more than 80 percent of the population follows football, so we wanted to be there. It's one of the main countries in the region, so for us was very important to be there.
“We not only want to be there with a small project,” she added. “We have many different projects there, with the General Entertainment Authority, with the Ministry of Sports, and (recently) we were celebrating FC Futures in Riyadh, which Villarreal won. We we want to know the countries in which we have fans of La Liga.”
Off the pitch, other ventures include the opening of themed bar and restaurant LaLiga TwentyNine and the world’s largest football museum, Legends, both in Riyadh in collaboration with Saudi events company SELA and the GEA.
“So, this is our mission there, it's about connecting with all of the fans, engaging with the main institutions there,” said Ventura. “We want to be present there, and we don’t want to be there just doing FC Futures, we want to be there for a long time, and we want to be there for our fans.”
When La Liga’s office in Dubai opened in 2014, it became its first ever outside Madrid, with an urgent brief to spread the Spanish league’s brand.
“Our president, Javier Tebas, understood that the limit was the population in Spain, so the only way to keep growing was to go beyond our borders.”
Dubai was seen as the ideal strategic location from which the operation would be carried out in the rest of the region.
“This is not only the 10-year anniversary of the Dubai office, but (of) the international expansion strategy,” said Ventura. “It’s been a long journey, but actually working in the MENA region, where football is the number one sport and where La Liga is the most consumed competition, it’s a pleasure.”
Regionally, Real Madrid and Barcelona have enjoyed huge support for decades in the Middle East, while others like Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao and Valencia have accumulated big followings as well. La Liga’s mission is not just to promote its collective brand, but the individual clubs as well among Arabic-speaking audiences.
“We are doing this in different areas” said Ventura. “From a data perspective, we are working with around 12 clubs from La Liga, we are managing their Arabic social media accounts, we are putting weekly content plan for them to be connecting with their own fans.
“The clubs have understood as well that their fans are not only in Spain, in Valencia or Sevilla or Vigo, but they are in Cairo, Dubai or Jeddah,” she said. “So, this clicked in their heads, and in the last four to five years, the clubs have changed their strategy to go abroad and to connect with their fans. For us, we started with just three people back in 2013. And, right now, we are almost 20 people working only for the MENA region in eight different countries.”
Alongside its strategic projects in Saudi Arabia, La Liga also has representatives working in Qatar, Morocco, Egypt and Iraq.
“Right now we have three people fully based in Baghdad, because we have a very interesting project with the football association there,” said Ventura. “In at the end, our way of doing this is always to be on the ground, physically here, understanding who our fans are, how they consume our product, how they like it, and this allows us to understand and to have this market intelligence and to go to the clubs to let them understand how this works.
“Being in Morocco is not the same as being in Dubai or Baghdad, for example. Our mission is basically to increase the brand value and the value of the TV rights to reach other audiences, other profiles, and of course, to generate business opportunity for La Liga and the clubs.”
In 2022, La Liga and Dubai-based media multinational Galaxy Racer signed a 15-year joint venture to promote the league’s brand in the MENA region and Indian subcontinent.
“We are totally convinced that (for La Liga) to penetrate any market, we need to go hand-in-hand with a partner. It doesn’t matter if it’s a local authority, football federation, local league or a club. We are here to connect with the fans, to connect with the people that like football in each of the countries. So, it’s not like we are in Dubai, and we are managing everything from here. In the case of Iraq, we have a strategic agreement with the football association there. We are working with them to transform the local league, the Iraqi Stars League.”
The highest number of users from the region registered on La Liga’s app comes from Iraq, Ventura revealed, and technology and artificial intelligence are ways through which Spanish clubs will be reaching out to fans, as well as, in the cases of Sevilla and Deportivo Alaves to name two, to gain an advantage in the fields of scouting and recruitment of players.
“We (La Liga) have been working very hard in strengthening the brand of each of the clubs,” Ventura said. “Because the clubs are not just depending on their players — if one player leaves, the club has to keep being strong. So, of course, these are very important lessons that we have been working on now over the last 10 years. First it was international strategy, they understood this, and right now for example, they are working a lot in technology, and definitely AI is going to play a key role in La Liga, not only in this region, but worldwide in the coming years.
“Each of the clubs have their own approach,” said Ventura. “Some of them, they have very strong grassroots systems. Some of them are in involving themselves a lot in technology. Each of them are specializing in (ways) to enter into the market. It’s not the same from one club to another, and they understood this in the right way.”
Ventura expects more partnerships to be signed in 2024 and beyond.
“Last year, it was very important because we partnered with a Galaxy Racer,” she said. “In the MENA region, 50 percent of the population is less than 30 years old. We are very focused on connecting with the youngest generations, Millennials and Gen Z population mainly. So, that is why, from this season, we have started to produce a lot of local content. This means that here we are creating content in Arabic for our Arab fans. We have a very strong strategy right now. We just launched the first Arabic podcast from La Liga, it is called ‘Vamos La Liga’.”
She continued: “We were expecting big numbers, but the the feedback has been amazing. We had more than five million views on the second episode that was with (renowned journalist) Achraf Ben Ayad.”
Ventura says the episode was one of the most consumed pieces of content ever produced by La Liga’s global accounts.
“The experience has been amazing, and we will keep increasing the (amount) of local content, and we are working with a lot of content creators. We will have very big names coming to this podcast very soon,” she added. “We are very focused on the production of local content, and by that I mean everything will be in Arabic, and with people from the region. So the experience has been great.
“We are also doing documentaries, we are producing other type of programmes and everything will be rolled out in the coming months so it’s very exciting.”
Smashing barriers — table tennis helping rise of sporting events in the Middle East
- WTT chief executive writes exclusively for Arab News about the impact of Saudi Smash 2024
JEDDAH: As the Middle East continues its economic transformation, its rapidly growing sports industry stands as a prominent example of this dynamic shift. Events like the Saudi Smash 2024 in Jeddah exemplify the region’s ambition to host major international sports competitions; they also underscore a broader trend toward creating immersive, engaging experiences for a diverse audience.
A reflection of regional growth
Saudi Smash 2024 is not merely an international table tennis event; it reflects a vigorous push into the sports sector, which is becoming a cornerstone of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 strategy. In 2022, the sports tourism sector emerged as a booming $600 billion industry in the Middle East, anticipated to grow even further. The sports industry in the region is expected to expand by 8.7 percent by 2026, sharply contrasting with the global industry’s slower growth rate of 3.3 percent. Studies suggest that, in some Middle Eastern countries, a halo effect boosts the tourism and hospitality industry by up to 30 percent.
But such mega sporting events do not only drive immediate economic uplift through increased tourism and consumer spending. The preparation and execution of an event like Saudi Smash 2024 involve numerous local stakeholders from various industries, thereby distributing economic benefits across a broad spectrum of the local economy. They also promote long-term economic stability by creating jobs and spurring infrastructural developments.
A need for enhanced fan engagement
Recognizing the shifting preferences of younger generations, the Middle East is tailoring its sporting events to cater to Generation Z and Alpha spectators who prefer shorter, more action-packed formats. Similar to what can be expected at a World Table Tennis Saudi Smash, these events are no longer just about the sport; they are multimedia, multifaceted experiences that incorporate advanced digital technologies — such as augmented reality and real-time data analytics — to offer personalized and interactive fan engagement. This shift is critical as fan attraction and retention now hinge on delivering more than just brand loyalty; young fans desire a voice in decision-making processes and seek bespoke experiences that resonate with their digital-native sensibilities.
The power of sports sponsorships
The global sports sponsorship market is poised to grow from $66 billion in 2022 to nearly $108 billion by 2030, and the flourishing sports scene in the Middle East provides fertile ground for brands to market themselves to millions of consumers in the region. An event like Saudi Smash offers regional and global brands a platform to enhance visibility and engage with diverse audiences. The power of sponsorship, in its traditional form, is undeniable. It offers brands an unparalleled opportunity to connect with specific audience segments, fostering emotional bonds, driving brand loyalty, and catalyzing sales. Sponsorship, long-standing in the world of marketing, has entered a transformative era. Sports event partnerships have evolved from mere logo placements and brand affiliations to deeper, more strategic partnerships with an increased focus on values, social impact, and long-term engagement. These collaborations not only drive direct revenue but also build brand associations with health, vitality, and global connectivity, aligning perfectly with corporate goals of broader market penetration and consumer connection.
The evolution of table tennis
The establishment of WTT has been instrumental in transforming table tennis into a major player on the global sports stage. By introducing high-stakes competitions and enhancing broadcast quality, WTT events like the Saudi Smash exemplify how the sport is not only elevating its profile but also integrating seamlessly into the broader context of international sporting events. These events showcase world-class table tennis talent and craft a spectator experience that is globally engaging and accessible. They not only captivate new fans but also attract brand partnerships, further embedding table tennis into the global sports narrative.
Looking to the future
The Middle East’s journey towards becoming a global sports destination is full of promise, bolstered by continuous investments in technology and infrastructure. The transformation of sporting events in the region is emblematic of broader ambitions on the world stage. Through strategic innovation and proactive engagement, the Middle East is not just participating in but is actively leading the global sports dialogue. Events like the WTT Saudi Smash are in place to support this journey, setting new benchmarks for what a sporting event can offer and inviting the world to witness the rise of a new era in global sports prominence.
• Steve Dainton is chief executive of World Table Tennis
Pakistan to face India on Oct. 6 in women’s T20 World Cup clash
- ICC Women’s T20 World Cup to run from Oct. 3-20 in Dhaka and Sylhet
- Pakistan are placed in Group A with Australia, India, New Zealand, Qualifier 1
DHAKA: England will face South Africa in the opening match of the ICC Women’s Twenty20 World Cup to be held in Bangladesh later this year, the International Cricket Council announced on Sunday.
The event will run from October 3 to 20 in the capital Dhaka and the northeastern city of Sylhet, with warm-up matches starting on September 27.
Hosts Bangladesh and the top six teams from the previous edition in South Africa — Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies — qualified automatically for the tournament, with Pakistan joining them as the next best ranked team.
Ireland, the UAE, Sri Lanka and Scotland are in contention for the remaining two places, with the semifinals of the qualifying tournament being held in the UAE.
Six-times winners and current world number one Australia will play in Group A alongside India, New Zealand, Pakistan and a Qualifier 1.
Neighbours and rivals India and Pakistan will face off on October 6.
Group B will feature South Africa, Bangladesh, England, West Indies, and Qualifier 2.
“Over the last six to seven years we have seen women’s cricket grow exponentially,” ICC chief executive officer Geoff Allardice said at the announcement of the fixture list and trophy unveiling in Dhaka.
“This is going to be a very special tournament,” he added.
It will be the ninth edition of the tournament, with Bangladesh previously hosting in 2014.
From bricks to clicks, Pakistani laborer achieves fame and financial independence via YouTube videos
From bricks to clicks, Pakistani laborer achieves fame and financial independence via YouTube videos
- Riaz Ali who built homes working as a manual laborer initially began making videos on TikTok
- 30-year-old made his YouTube channel in 2022 and has since become an online sensation
SANGHAR: Riaz Ali, 34, would stack brick over brick and bond them with mortar, a thick paste of cement, water and sand, as he built homes and did other manual labor work for years in the southern Pakistani district of Sanghar.
In 2022, he started making engaging video content that included throwing and catching mortar, targeting a tall pole with a motorbike tire and some prank videos, which have not only turned the daily wager into a millionaire but also a digital sensation.
Ali, better known as Riaz Jaan, initially posted videos on TikTok after which a friend advised him to post them on YouTube. He created his YouTube channel in April 2022 which was monetized only nine months later.
He now earns 20 times more than what he used to make two years ago.
“As a laborer, my wage was Rs1,500 [per day]. In a month, I used to earn Rs30,000 or Rs35,000 ($107-$125) as it was an inconsistent livelihood,” he told Arab News on Thursday.
“From YouTube, I earn more than Rs500,000 ($1,795) per month.”
Ali, who has 1.9 million subscribers on YouTube, 439,000 followers on TikTok and 359,000 on Facebook, says his content went viral through YouTube Shorts — vertical videos that have a duration of 60 seconds or less.
“My first earnings on YouTube were Rs800,000 ($2,872). I had never seen such a huge amount of money before. My family and I were so delighted that such a significant sum had come into my hands,” he said.
“After YouTube, my life changed. As they say, when Allah gives, He gives abundantly.”
Ali, who started working as a daily wager in 2010, has left his laboring job since becoming a digital sensation but still makes videos related to his former work.
He has also enabled the sharing of his viral videos on YouTube, helping several other content creators have engagement on their channels.
“There are people from various countries who repost my content and videos on their channels, and their channels have also been monetized,” he said. “I have granted them permission.”
This success has helped Ali buy two residential plots and two buffaloes, send his children to better schools, and take care of his family in a much better way. The 30-year-old has also bought a mobile phone worth Rs500,000, which he uses to create quality video content.
But Ali has not kept his success to himself and has passed his digital skills on to his family, friends and whoever he found willing to learn.
“Besides myself, my brother also has a YouTube channel where he posts labor-related videos. His channel has also been monetized,” he told Arab News.
“Additionally, I have two sons, Ali Ayan and Zeb Zohan, whose channel is also monetized.”
He says neither his brother’s nor his sons’ channels gained traction in the beginning and so, he began posting his content on their channels, which helped them gain momentum. Consequently, both channels were monetized.
The 30-year-old offers free, informal consultancy services to youth, who are interested in establishing their own YouTube channels, in his hometown of Jhol in Sanghar. He says he has around 50 to 60 youngsters, who either have monetized channels or are actively working toward them.
“I guide them all, and they follow my directions,” Ali said.
Ali Raza, a farmer and a friend of Ali, got inspired by seeing his friend earn through YouTube. Raza created his own account on the video-sharing website, where he posts funny videos.
“Since Riaz Jaan is teaching others, I also joined his group. It’s been four months since my YouTube channel has been monetized,” Ali Raza told Arab News.
“I earn between Rs25,000 and Rs30,000 ($89-$107) per month.”
