Dakar Packs Its Bags, and the Real Price of Saudi Sport

Think of January. Desert cold, sand dunes, thousands of kilometers of track. A truck driver — perhaps Portuguese, perhaps French, perhaps Argentine — has spent years mentally mapping the Dakar Rally's route through Saudi Arabia. He filed his entry. Got approval from his sponsor. And now, with a single announcement published on a Sunday morning, that route is erased. A 'different country' will be the new home. But where? Still unknown.

The joint statement from Amaury Sport Organisation and Saudi Motorsport Company was brief, almost sterile: the 2027 race will be held elsewhere due to 'recent developments in the region.' They need a few more days to announce the location. According to expert racing media, Morocco or Spain are among the options on the table. If Morocco is chosen, it means the Dakar returns to Africa for the first time since 2007 — a kind of nostalgic return. But this is not a nostalgic return that anyone planned.

Saudi Arabia has been hosting this race since 2020. For five years, desert routes were mapped, infrastructure built, calendars organized. Grand celebrations were planned for the 50th anniversary in 2028. Now that anniversary milestone sits on paper; organizers 'plan' to return in 2028. This is a statement of intent, not a commitment.

In my reading, this is not merely a logistical problem for a race. This is a strategy being tested.

Saudi Arabia has long framed its relationship with sport not as a simple entertainment sector matter, but as a geopolitical tool. Formula 1 races, golf tournaments, boxing events, tennis tournaments, football transfers — each was part of an interconnected project. The message was clear: the Kingdom exports not just oil, but also organizes world sport. When this table is set, the message went, other matters recede into the background.

But now Riyadh faces different pressure.

Attacks on King Khalid International Airport — Houthi attacks that this month killed 18 people and wounded hundreds — have upended not just daily life, but the practical feasibility calculations of international organizers. For a sporting event to be held in a country, venue security is essential, but that security has become something the Kingdom can no longer guarantee on its own. Organizers have been forced to confront this reality.

Dakar is not alone in this picture. This year's Jeddah Formula 1 Grand Prix was cancelled. The Bahrain race was first cancelled, then rescheduled in Malaysia. The World Rally Championship's Saudi Arabia final was cancelled. An exhibition tennis tournament featuring Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, and Alexander Zverev was postponed to late December. The WTA Finals moved from Riyadh to Indian Wells. The calendar began emptying, one event at a time.

Ask yourself: Is there a price to this emptiness?

Yes, there is. But to calculate that price, you must first think of an individual.

In northern Riyadh, over five years on Saudi soil, a logistics infrastructure tied to Dakar operations was built — say, a local driver, a local coordinator, a local ticket vendor. For these people, the relocation of the 2027 Dakar is not abstract geopolitical data, but concrete income loss. No matter how large the stage, there remains always an individual human body that will not see the show where it stands.

Move to city scale: Riyadh, in recent years, invested in intra-city infrastructure fueled by the economic momentum created by sports tourism. Hotel reservations, transport corridors, event venues — these were planned not for a single race, but for the accumulation that a series of events would create. Each cancellation is a transaction that melts that accumulation.

When you move to country level, the picture becomes more complex. Houthi attacks directly affect crude oil exports, aviation infrastructure, and international business partnerships. The Kingdom ranks as the world's largest crude oil exporter, and economic volatility is intertwined with this reality. Sports events may appear small as a revenue line item, but when calculated as 'image investment,' their weight is far greater.

And when it comes to the system — here strategy faces its own paradox.

Using sport as a geopolitical lightning rod, that is, saying 'watch us, we bring you entertainment,' is a strategy that only works as long as the game can be played on stage. But when geopolitical crisis itself erases the stage, the tool becomes useless. More importantly, every postponed event etches a question into minds: 'Is Saudi Arabia an unreliable host?' Once that question takes root, even the planned return of the Dakar in 2028 will have to answer for it.

Mohammed bin Salman's meeting this week with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis offers an interesting context — the two leaders put bilateral relations, 'efforts to increase regional security,' and cooperation in various fields on the table. Greece's technical partnership under the EMC submarine cable project continues. Diplomatic traffic shows no signs of diminishing. But when that diplomatic activity stands alongside the gaps in the sports calendar, a different picture emerges: the political class continues its relations, but the decisions of organizers whisper a different reality.

The Morocco option is intriguing because it is historically meaningful. The Dakar is a race born from Africa. In 2008, it had to leave North Africa due to security concerns, first moving to South America, then to Saudi Arabia. If it returns to Morocco in 2027, this journey traces a circle — and within that circle are two separate security crises. The story is symmetrical.

But it should also be noted: that organizers explicitly stated their intention to return to Saudi Arabia in 2028 means this is not a break. It is an interim period. A 'pause.' The legal relationship between Amaury Sport Organisation and Saudi Motorsport Company appears to continue, otherwise there would be no mention of 2028 plans.

So is this 'pause' truly temporary?

In my reading, the answer to that question depends entirely on how the military situation on the Houthi-Saudi front shapes up in the next 14 months. If relative stability is achieved by January 2028, the Dakar's 50th anniversary could return to Riyadh on a wave of great sympathy — perhaps as an even stronger spectacle. If attacks continue, the 2028 plan could also be postponed with an announcement.

Sport is played in peace. This is as simple as a sentence and as complex as a strategy.

Finally, I think this: the coordinator whose desk held those desert route maps — who crossed out the January week on his calendar and replaced it with a question mark — did not make a decision that changed the world. But that act of erasure was the moment when decisions made thousands of kilometers away fell onto the ground. This is how the system descends to the street: suspended over a question mark.