Share for profit and end for love

I rarely write about sports due to lack of experience and poor follow-up, and if it happens and I write, it is usually from an economic angle because this sector is full of opportunities and challenges and it is still a fairly virgin investment system.
Some memories came with the issuance of the historic decision of the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to launch the investment and privatization project for sports clubs, the new sector covered by his unique vision that deals with one sector after another with development, modernization, governance, and changing the way of thinking so that results change and goals are achieved.
In 1997, I published a press work that consisted of a symposium on the privatization of clubs, which hosted prominent bankers, a sports writer, and an official in a club – if my memory fails me – and the discussion concluded with the importance of the idea, and the need for many steps to be able to start this project from the investment point of view.
In the period from 2008 to 2010, I partnered in a Saudi bank with Khaled Al-Rubaian, who today has become one of the Saudi professional specialists in sports investment. He did and succeeded, and today he is among those who were able to deal with the economic aspects of football professionally, and I think they are few. The sports investment file moved more than once, but it seems to me that it did not reach the required maturity, readiness and attractiveness, and today it is part of the Saudi movement system at all levels. It has become a golden opportunity for Saudi investors, and perhaps foreigners later, and perhaps launching the project in stages will deepen the returns of the experience. The Public Investment Fund has a clear and declared strategy. It establishes, acquires, or ally, and if the investment matures, part of it is offered for public subscription, and this is what will happen in the sports sector in the future, and this is perhaps what made colleague Abdulaziz Al-Suwaid ask an investment and emotional question at the same time on his Twitter account. “If sports club companies are offered for subscription, do you subscribe according to your inclinations or according to the profitability of the company?
At first glance, I answered: according to profitability, and I think that I will stick to my opinion, unless love prevails, which will affect the decision of many when subscribing and investing, and it will become the case of wise people that they have one share for profit and another for love, especially if the latter is less profitable than the first. This important project will not only change the features of the sports sector, it will add a lot to other sectors and will create new job opportunities, perhaps the talk will continue about it.