News that Saudi Arabia is on course to host the 2034 football World Cup is grim. The country might not win the cup, but its capacity for state murder is world class: 112 killed this year so far and counting. However, the news should come as no surprise: its geopolitical power is rising and combining with vast wealth to ensure that objections to its human rights record are brushed aside by those in power. Before he was elected president, Joe Biden declared that Saudi would be treated as a ‘pariah state’ following the state-sanctioned murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. But once he was in the Oval Office, realpolitik intervened. His administration is now most concerned about China’s growing influence, which is why it has agreed to Saudi Arabia’s request for help in building a civilian nuclear programme - which critics fear could lead to developing nuclear weapons. US dollars could end up paying for the defence of a brutal Gulf regime that has undermined Western economies, helped Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by cutting oil supplies and keeping prices high, and continued with the catastrophic war in Yemen. In these terms, gifting Bin Salman the World Cup seems like a minor folly.