Saudi Arabia has been accused of sportswashing, an attempt to improve its reputation through buying the English football club Newcastle United. The purpose of this paper is to explore through a discourse analysis how Saudi Arabia's action to acquire Newcastle United can be seen as an exercise of power, and whether and how the images presented construct and reinforce orientalist discourses about the Saudi state and the region. The discourse analysis is conducted using Laclau and Mouffe's methodology and the theoretical framework applied is Joseph Nye's soft power, Edward Said's Orientalism and hegemony. Based on the international newspaper The Guardian and the human rights organization Amnesty International, orientalist discourses have been identified and the purchase of Newcastle United has resulted in soft disempowerment effects for Saudi Arabia. Local newspaper The Chronicle also constructed orientalist discourses about the state of Saudi Arabia but legitimizes the purchase of Newcastle United making the soft power exercise successful.

Saudi Arabia has been accused of sportswashing, which involves attempting to enhance its reputation by acquiring the English football club, Newcastle United. This study aims to conduct a framing analysis to explore how Saudi Arabia’s acquisition of Newcastle United can be perceived as an exercise of soft power and how the portrayed images in media construct and reinforce orientalist and eurocentric perspectives about Saudi Arabia and the region. This study analyzes the coverage from the media outlets The Guardian, Dagens Nyheter and the Saudi-based Al Arabiya. It focuses on how the media shapes and presents the image of Saudi Arabia in connection with the acquisition of Newcastle United and to what extent orientalist representations are reflected. Furthermore, the study’s findings indicate that orientalist depictions are identified to a certain extent, particularly in the coverage from The Guardian and Dagens Nyheter. The acquisition of Newcastle United has also resulted in increased soft power effects for Saudi Arabia, where the Saudi-newspaper Al Arabiya constructs a more positive narrative around acquisition of the football club, which can impact both local and global perceptions of the event.