Saudi Arabia Is Building A $500 Bn City On Red Sea, It Hosted Its First Beach Sports Tournament

The tournament on the sandy shores of northern Saudi Arabian city of Neom was meant to give a push to sports, but things turned out be more focused on the location.

Neom, is a 13,000-square mile luxury tourism destination on the Red Sea. This project is a manifestation of the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman¡¯s (MBS) desire to take things forward in the direction of economic diversification and religious moderation in a country known for it's ultra-conservative traditions.

Reuters

Neom stands for a new operating model, a fundamental adaptation to new realities. According to Al Arabiya, the first three characters 'NEO' come from Latin and they mean 'new'. The fourth character 'M' is the abbreviation of the Arabic word 'Mostaqbal' which means 'future'. According to a Daniel Wagner's blog for the Sunday Guardian, NEOM is supposed to be 'a global leader in embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR)¡ªa fusion of technologies that blurs the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres'.

According to Bloomberg, Neom Beach Soccer Cup was one of the first public events to be held on the site of the $500 billion futuristic city Saudi Arabia plans to build from scratch, on the Red Sea.

"These kinds of events are very important for us to showcase the beauty of Neom and the potential that Neom has in the sports sector," the Bloomberg quoted Lojain Alharbi, a 25-year-old sports business analyst for Neom as saying.

"We want Neom to be a launchpad for extreme adventure sports, a healthy living hub, a global capital for elite sports."

The teams from countries including the U.K., China and the United Arab Emirates competed in beach soccer, beach tennis, beach rugby and wakeboarding reports Bloomberg.

NEOM, the construction of which started in 2017, is in a pristine position on the Red Sea coast and has financial support of a whopping USD 500 billion from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, reports Arab News.

NEOM Beach sports/YouTube

¡°The start of NEOM Bay will offer unique opportunities for investors and tourists alike that will provide impetus for new sector growth going forward,¡± said John Sfakianakis, Chief Economist at the Gulf Research Center, based in Saudi Arabia.

The Neom futuristic city planning board chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aims to build homes, tourist facilities, and 'innovation centers', states the Arab News report.

A number of facilities will be completed by the end of this year including the current airport at Sharma and this year, the Kingdom¡¯s national carrier, operated the airport's first passenger flight and it travelled to the capital Riyadh. The airline said it will operate two flights weekly from Neom to Riyadh only.